Fig. 5: Host genetic variation correlated with pathogen profile.

a, Spearman correlation between mitochondrial sequence divergence and microbiome community differences in ticks with samples over 200 including H. longicornis, R. microplus and D. silvarum across different sampling regions and parasitic states. The numbers within each heat map cell represent Spearman’s correlation coefficients (at least 20 pairs), and the colour intensity of the heat map reflects the statistical significance of the correlation. b, The relationship between mitochondrial sequence divergence and the similarity of tick symbiotic communities for H. longicornis in a free-living state from Central China (left) and D. silvarum parasitizing sheep from Inner Mongolia–Xinjiang regions (right). Data are presented as fitted values ± 95% confidence interval. c, H. longicornis genetic variation correlated with the relative abundance of Rickettsia. The Manhattan plot shows the results of the mGWAS. Two-sided P values were calculated using the BLINK algorithm implemented in the GAPIT R package. Bonferroni correction was applied for multiple comparisons. −log₁₀(P values) are plotted against the position of SNPs on chromosomes. The gene annotation information corresponding to these SNPs above the threshold is labelled. Chr., chromosome number. d, The Upset plot identifies 109 shared GO terms annotated to pathogen-associated genes across three tick species. A total of 119 GO functional annotations are shared among the genes with significant SNPs in the three tick species. MF, molecular function; BP, biological process; CC, cellular component. e, Clustering results of samples based on homozygosity of SNPs and the corresponding region, animal host, parasitized state and engorgement condition. Determined to be two. D. silvarum clusters were significantly associated with sampling locations (P = 0.001, Mantel test), parasitic hosts (P = 0.001, Mantel test) and parasitic statuses (P = 0.001, Mantel test). REF indicates the nucleotide in the reference genome, whereas ALT represents the alternative nucleotide differing from the reference sequence.