A statistical test for host-parasite coevolution.
A new method, ParaFit, has been developed to test the significance of a global hypothesis of coevolution between parasites and their hosts. Individual host-parasite association links can also be tested. The test statistics are functions of the host and parasite phylogenetic trees and of the set of host-parasite association links. Numerical simulations are used to show that the method has correct rate of type I error and good power except under extreme error conditions. An application to real data (pocket gophers and chewing lice) is presented.
Legendre
Pierre
P
Département de sciences biologiques, Université de Montréal, C.P.6128, succursale Centre-ville, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C 3J7. Pierre.Legengre@umontreal.ca
Desdevises
Yves
Y
Bazin
Eric
E
D000818:Animals; D019295:Computational Biology; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions; D015233:Models, Statistical; D008003:Phthiraptera; D010802:Phylogeny; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012377:Rodentia