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Juan A. Balbuena's Research

Our research explores the intricate relationships between hosts and parasites and other symbionts, through the lens of eco-evolutionary studies. We focus on three key areas:

(a) Cophylogeny: Tracking Species Associations
Cophylogeny examines how species evolve together over time, such as parasites adapting to their hosts or pollinators co-evolving with flowering plants. Cophylogenetic concepts and approaches can also be applied to other fields, like molecular systematics (how genes or organisms relate to one another) and historical biogeography (how species spread across geographic areas). While currently there is a battery of tools to study cophylogentic associations, linking patterns with mechanisms is still a major challenge. Our current research aims to bridge this gap by integrating insights from ecology and evolution to advance this field.

(b) Community Ecology of Fish Parasites
A major goal in biology is understanding how biodiversity is distributed and assembled, which is critical for predicting how environmental changes impact ecosystems. A significant part of our research focuses on how invasive host species affect parasite communities. 

(c) Evolution of Monogeneans: Adaptation and Attachment
Monogeneans are ectoparasites that rely heavily on specialized attachment organs to survive on their hosts. We study how these attachment structures evolve, both in terms of their physical form (phenotype) and genetic makeup (genotype). By examining the relationship between their morphology and evolutionary history, we expect to gain insights into how parasites adapt to different host species and environments.

 


research areas


Projects

Evolutionary and ecological determinants of specialisation: Deciphering the determinants of host specificity in a fish-monogenean model. I+D+i Projects. Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain (PID2022-139723NB-I00) 2023-2027. 

Integrated Monitoring of Parasites in Changing Environments (IMPACT). Biodiversa+ European Biodiversity Partnership. Spanish Research Agency (PCI2023-145950-2 ) 2024-2026. 

Cophylogenomics of a very young host-parasite model:  bridging the gap between micro- and macroevolutionary processes (COPHYHOPA). I+D+i Projects. Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain (PID2019-104908GB-I00) 2020-2023. 

Selected Publications (i.e., a compromise between latest and favourite papers)

Lehun AL, Cavalcanti LD, Casali GP, Silva JOS, Michelan G, Balbuena JA (2025). Host fishes shape the taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity of endoparasite communities in a Neotropical floodplain. Hydrobiologia. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-024-05791-0

Soares GB, Adriano EA, Domingues MV, Rodríguez-González A, Balbuena JA (2024). Evolutionary morphology of haptoral anchors in monogenoids (Dactylogyridae) of marine catfish (Siluriformes: Ariidae) from the Atlantic coast of South America. Parasitology 151: 390–399. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0031182024000192

Sarabeev V, Balbuena JA, Jarosiewicz A, Voronova N, Sueiro R, Leiro J, Ovcharenko M (2023). Disentangling the determinants of symbiotic species richness in native and invasive gammarids (Crustacea, Amphipoda) of the Baltic region. Int J Parasitol 53: 305–316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpara.2023.02.006

Llopis‐Belenguer C, Balbuena JA, Blasco‐Costa I, Karvonen A, Sarabeev V, Jokela J (2023). Sensitivity of bipartite network analyses to incomplete sampling and taxonomic uncertainty. Ecology 104: e3974. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3974

Llaberia-Robledillo M, Lucas-Lledó JI, Pérez-Escobar OA, Krasnov BR, Balbuena JA (2023). Rtapas: An R Package to Assess Cophylogenetic Signal between Two Evolutionary Histories. Syst Biol 72: 946–954. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syad016

Blasco-Costa I, Hayward A, Poulin R, Balbuena JA (2021). Next-generation cophylogeny: unravelling eco-evolutionary processes. Trends Ecol Evol 36: 907–918. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2021.06.006

Balbuena JA, Monlleó-Borrull C, Llopis-Belenguer C, Blasco-Costa I, Sarabeev VL, Morand S (2021). Fuzzy quantification of common and rare species in ecological communities (FuzzyQ). Methods Ecol Evol 12: 1070–1079. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13588

Llopis-Belenguer C, Pavoine S, Blasco-Costa I, Balbuena JA (2020). Assembly rules of helminth parasite communities in grey mullets: combining components of diversity. Int J Parasitol 50: 1089–1098. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpara.2020.06.006

Balbuena JA, Pérez-Escobar OA, Llopis-Belenguer C, Blasco-Costa I (2020). Random Tanglegram Partitions (Random TaPas): An Alexandrian approach to the cophylogenetic Gordian knot. Syst Biol 69: 1212–1230. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syaa033

Llopis-Belenguer C, Blasco-Costa I, Balbuena JA, Sarabeev V, Stouffer D (2020). Native and invasive hosts play different roles in host–parasite networks. Ecography 43: 559–568. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.04963

Llopis-Belenguer C, Balbuena JA, Lange K, de Bello F, Blasco-Costa I (2019). Towards a unified functional trait framework for parasites. Trends Parasitol 35: 972–982. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pt.2019.09.003

Sarabeev V, Balbuena JA, Morand S (2018). Invasive parasites are detectable by their abundance-occupancy relationships: the case of helminths from Liza haematocheilus (Teleostei: Mugilidae). Int J Parasitol 48: 793–803. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpara.2018.04.001

Rodríguez-González A, Sarabeev V, Balbuena JA (2017). Evolutionary morphology in shape and size of haptoral anchors in 14 Ligophorus spp. (Monogenea: Dactylogyridae). PLoS ONE 12: e0178367. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178367

Pérez-Escobar OA, Balbuena JA, Gottschling M (2016). Rumbling orchids: How to assess divergent evolution between chloroplast endosymbionts and the nuclear host. Syst Biol 65: 51–65. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syv070

Llopis-Belenguer C, Balbuena JA, Galván-Femenía I, Rodríguez-González A (2015). Phenotypic Buffering in a Monogenean: Canalization and Developmental Stability in Shape and Size of the Haptoral Anchors of Ligophorus cephali (Monogenea: Dactylogyridae). PLoS ONE 10: e0142365. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0142365

Rodríguez-González A, Míguez-Lozano R, Llopis-Belenguer C, Balbuena JA (2015). Phenotypic plasticity in haptoral structures of Ligophorus cephali (Monogenea: Dactylogyridae) on the flathead mullet (Mugil cephalus): a geometric morphometric approach. Int J Parasitol 45: 295–303. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0020751915000399

Balbuena JA, Míguez-Lozano R, Blasco-Costa I (2013). PACo: A Novel Procrustes Application to Cophylogenetic Analysis. PLoS ONE 8: e61048. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0061048

Sarabeev V, Rubtsova N, Yang T, Balbuena JA (2013). Taxonomic revision of the Atlantic and Pacific species of Ligophorus (Monogenea, Dactylogyridae) from mullets (Teleostei, Mugilidae) with the proposal of a new genus and description of four new species. Vest Zool, Suppl. 28, 112 p.

Blasco-Costa I, Míguez-Lozano R, Sarabeev V, Balbuena JA (2012). Molecular phylogeny of species of Ligophorus (Monogenea: Dactylogyridae) and their affinities within the Dactylogyridae. Parasitol Int 61: 619–627. doi: 10.1016/j.parint.2012.06.004.

Last update: Feb. 2025