Coevolution of host resistance and pathogen exploitation in a propagule-mediated infection model
Prerna Singh, Justin Sheen, Chadi M. Saad-Roy, Michael Z. Levy, C. Jessica E. Metcalf
TL;DR
This study models how host resistance and pathogen strategies coevolve when transmission happens through environmental propagules, showing how survival costs and infection pressure shape evolutionary outcomes.
Contribution
A novel population-level model using adaptive dynamics to explore coevolution of host resistance and pathogen exploitation in environmentally transmitted infections.
Findings
Maximal host resistance evolves at intermediate infection pressures due to survival costs.
Coevolution can lead to evolutionary branching, resulting in coexistence of host strains with different resistance levels.
Coevolution affects free pathogen propagule density, either amplifying or suppressing infection depending on transmission and mortality parameters.
Abstract
Host populations often face infection risk from pathogens that can persist in the environment as free-living propagules. We develop a population-level model to understand how host resistance - defined as reduced susceptibility to infection - evolves in response to the exploitation strategy of a pathogen where transmission occurs exclusively via environmental propagules. Using an adaptive dynamics framework, we analyze how the coevolution of host resistance and pathogen exploitation strategy unfolds under the following fitness costs: reduced survival associated with investment in resistance reflected by additional background mortality for the host; and reduced average lifespan represented by increased infected host mortality for the pathogen. Calculating individual host and pathogen invasion fitness expressions using standard invasion analysis, we track how stable levels of investment in…
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Taxonomy
TopicsEvolution and Genetic Dynamics · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Zoonotic diseases and public health