The evolutionary and coevolutionary consequences of defensive microbes for host-parasite interactions

Animal and plant species can harbour microbes that provide them with protection against enemies. These beneficial microbes can be a significant component of host defence that complement or replaces a repertoire of immunity, but they can also be costly. Given their impact on host and parasite fitness...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMC evolutionary biology 2017-08, Vol.17 (1), p.190-190, Article 190
Main Authors: King, Kayla C, Bonsall, Michael B
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal species
Animals
Bacteria - metabolism
Biological Coevolution
Biological Evolution
Competition
Costs
Defensive symbiosis
Epidemiology
Evolution
Fitness
Fitness set
Genomes
Herbivores
Host plants
Host-parasite coevolution
Host-parasite interactions
Host-Parasite Interactions - immunology
Immune system
Immunity
Infections
Infectivity
Insects
Life-history modelling
Microorganisms
Parasites
Parasites - physiology
Parasitoids
Plant protection
Plant species
Reproductive fitness
Selection, Genetic
Theoretical evolutionary biology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Animal and plant species can harbour microbes that provide them with protection against enemies. These beneficial microbes can be a significant component of host defence that complement or replaces a repertoire of immunity, but they can also be costly. Given their impact on host and parasite fitness, defensive microbes have the potential to influence host-parasite interactions on an evolutionary timescale. Using a phenotypic framework, we explore the evolutionary and coevolutionary dynamics of a host-parasite interaction in the presence of defensive microbes. We show that costs of host-defensive microbe systems are critical in determining whether a defensive microbe based system or an immune system provides better host protection investment. Partitioning the coevolutionary dynamics yields testable predictions. The density of defensive microbes influences the strength of selection resulting from host - defensive microbe - parasite coevolutionary interactions. We find that they lessen the negative effects of infection on hosts and reduce infectivity by directly competing with parasites. Defensive microbes might thus play a central role in host-parasite interactions, by outright replacing host-based defences, engaging in within-host competition with parasites, and ultimately driving tripartite coevolutionary dynamics.
ISSN:1471-2148
1471-2148
DOI:10.1186/s12862-017-1030-z