Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Reed DL
PROVIDER: S-EPMC521174 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Reed David L DL Smith Vincent S VS Hammond Shaless L SL Rogers Alan R AR Clayton Dale H DH
PLoS biology 20041005 11
Parasites can be used as unique markers to investigate host evolutionary history, independent of host data. Here we show that modern human head lice, Pediculus humanus, are composed of two ancient lineages, whose origin predates modern Homo sapiens by an order of magnitude (ca. 1.18 million years). One of the two louse lineages has a worldwide distribution and appears to have undergone a population bottleneck ca. 100,000 years ago along with its modern H. sapiens host. Phylogenetic and populatio ...[more]