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MBE Advance Access originally published online on March 27, 2009
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2009 26(7):1457-1468; doi:10.1093/molbev/msp062
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Research Articles

A Permutation Test of Host–Parasite Cospeciation

Kerstin Hommola*

Judith E. Smith{dagger}

Yang Qiu{dagger}

Walter R. Gilks*

* Department of Statistics, School of Mathematics, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom
{dagger} Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

E-mail: kerstin{at}maths.leeds.ac.uk.

Accepted for publication March 12, 2009.

We introduce a statistical method that explores host–parasite coevolution by testing the null hypothesis that hosts and their associated parasites evolved independently. This test is simple and intuitive and involves only suitable randomization of the observed data. It is not even necessary to construct host and parasite phylogenetic trees, as the test can be performed directly on distance matrices. Statistical power of the test was evaluated using simulated data consistent with the alternative hypothesis of cospeciation. Results were compared with the method of Mantel (1967) and the ParaFit method of Legendre et al. (2002). We observed that our method has greater power overall and thus a higher ability to detect cospeciation in closely related host–parasite systems. Our test was also successful when applied to the pocket gopher and chewing lice system.

Key Words: cospeciation • coevolution • host–parasite • permutation test • hypothesis test • statistical power • simulation

Arndt von Haeseler, Associate Editor


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