FIGURE 5.

Maximum likelihood phylogeny of tick‐associated Coxiella endosymbionts inferred from 33 aligned 279‐nt segments of the 16S rRNA gene. GenBank accession numbers and tick species of origin are indicated for each sequence. Accession numbers for sequences from this study are in bold Bootstrap values at the major nodes are of percentage agreement among 1,000 replicates. The branch length scale represents substitutions per site. The gaps indicated in the branches to the L. pneumophila out‐group represent 0.12 substitutions per site. Sequences from this study and those from GenBank fall into three genotypes: A = Coxiella burnetii; B = Coxiella endosymbionts of Amblyomma spp. ticks; C = Coxiella endosymbionts of Rhipicephalus spp. ticks; D = Coxiella endosymbionts of Dermacentor and Amblyomma spp. ticks