Speciation in parasites: untangling drivers of evolutionary success

 

About project

Funding organization: Bulgarian National Science Fund, Grant no. КП-06-ПН91/32.

Basic Project Organization: Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IBER-BAS)

Project Coordinator: Assoc. Prof. Simona Georgieva

Participants:
Prof. Yassen Mutafchiev
Chief Assistant Simeon Borisov, PhD
Chief Assistant Yana Dimitrova, PhD
Borislav Stoyanov, PhD
Eli Mincheva, PhD Student
Boryana Tomova, MSc student

External collaborators
Assoc. Prof. Tetiana Kuzmina, PhD
Shevy Bat-Sheva Rothman, PhD

Funding amount: 130,379.43 € (255,000 BGN)

Contract Period: 2026 – 2028.

 

Aim of the project

Biodiversity, shaped by species interactions, is essential for maintaining ecosystem stability and function. Biology is undergoing a paradigm shift, after the emergence of the holobiont concept as a theoretical and experimental framework to study the interactions between hosts, parasites and their associated endosymbionts in all types of ecosystems. Growing evidence exists on the presence of essential symbionts harboured by various parasites. Endosymbionts play a critical role in host survival, adaptation to environmental challenges and are likely key contributors to the emergence of novel biochemical pathways. Despite their ecological significance, multi-symbiotic systems (i.e., parasites and their associated endosymbionts) remain largely understudied. Advances in high-throughput DNA sequencing and bioinformatics have revolutionized research by dramatically increasing the speed and scale of genetic data generation, making it faster, more accurate, and more cost-effective to study genomes, transcriptomes, and microbiomes. Expansion Microscopy, an emerging technology has opened new frontiers in the field of microscopy, surpassing the limitations of conventional imaging techniques and driving significant advances in parasitology. This interdisciplinary field has transformed biology and medicine, enabling large-scale studies of genetic variation, disease mechanisms, and evolutionary relationships, driving significant advances across multiple disciplines. By harnessing these cutting-edge approaches, this project seeks to address critical gaps in our understanding of multi-symbiotic systems in extreme habitats, uncovering their remarkable adaptations, and generate essential data to inform conservation and management strategies.

Extreme habitats and the organisms that thrive in them are of key importance for the study of biodiversity, speciation patterns, evolutionary strategies, and the responses of organisms to environmental changes, yet they remain among the least studied in this respect. This is particularly true for metazoan parasites, which are presumed to comprise half of all animal species on Earth; nevertheless, they remain a relatively poorly studied group worldwide. The resulting knowledge gaps hinder our understanding of ecosystem structure and dynamics, and lead to the underappreciation of ecological risks and the acceleration of species loss. To gain deeper insights into evolutionary processes, speciation, biodiversity, and the importance of symbiotic interactions in adapting to extreme environments, it is essential to employ an integrative, multidisciplinary approach, utilizing both classical and modern methodologies at all levels of organisation—from gene to ecosystem. The present project is focused on uncovering the diversity, population structure, and distribution strategies of multisymbiotic systems (host–parasite–symbiont) in one of the least studied ecosystems—the Southern Ocean. Through an innovative approach, the project will address critical gaps in our knowledge of multisymbiotic systems in extreme habitats, provide fundamental insights into their biodiversity, distinctive adaptations, and evolutionary mechanisms, and simultaneously lay the groundwork for advances in various scientific disciplines.

Expected results

The project will advance the fundamental knowledge of host-parasite-symbiont co-evolution. Results will shed light on the population structure, diversity, and biogeography, and adaptations of target hosts and parasites using population genetic data.

Research Articles

Achieved results