Figure 3.

Phylogenetic tree of published sequences and reports of Rickettsia amblyommatis in ticks. The analyses were based on the sequences of the ompA gene region of Rickettsia amblyommatis within 406 bp obtained from NCBI BLAST. This tree shows a collapsed version incorporating a total of 79 nucleotide sequences (n shows the total number of sequences included in that group). The phylogenetic analysis was completed using a maximum likelihood method on the Kimura 2-parameter model (ML; bootstrap replicates: 1000). This tree is collapsed with nodes organized by sequence differences of 0.001. Instances in which publications reported the species as “Rickettsia spp.” but indicated in the publication that the species was R. amblyommatis were included in this analysis. The GenBank accession numbers are given in parentheses. Scale bars indicate the number of substitutions per nucleotide position. The Rickettsia rickettsii Iowa isolate (CP018914) was included as an outgroup. Tick species included in this tree are as follows: A auricularium (A.au.), A. cajennense (A.c.), A. coelebs (A.co.), A. geayi (A.g.), A. hadanii (A.ha.), A. humerale (A.h.), A. longirostre (A.l.), A. americanum (A.a.), A. mixtum (A.mi.), A. neumanni (A.n.), A. oblongoguttatum (A.o.), A. pacae (A.pa.), A. parvum (A.par.), A. pseudoconcolor (A.p.), A. sculptum (A.s.), Amblyomma spp. (A.spp.), A. varium (A.v.), D. nitens (D.n.), D. variabilis (D.v.), and R. sanguineus (R.s.). The countries included in this tree are as follows: Brazil (BR), United States of America (US), Mexico (MX), Panama (PA), Argentina (AR), Costa Rica (CR), Belize (BE), El Salvador (ELSL), and Colombia (CO).