Specificity in parasites with multiple hosts: The view from the hosts' perspective

• Published in: Ideas in ecology and evolution 2014-01, Vol.7 (1), p.25-26
• Main Author: Lozano, George
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1918-3178; 1918-3178
• DOI: 10.4033/iee.2014.7.6.c

Reminiscent of Dawkins' analogy using the Necker cube (Dawkins 1983), Forbes and Mlynarek (2014) offer us a different perspective of multi-host parasite systems. Forbes and Mlynarek point out that, tradition-ally, multi-host parasite systems have been mostly viewed from the perspective of the parasite. Parasites have shorter lifespans and hence, supposedly have the upper hand in the antagonistic coevolutionary race between parasites and host. It is logical to study the problem from the perspective of the party that is more likely to be better adapted. However, Forbes and Mly-narek suggest it is perhaps time to view the problem from the perspective of the hosts, and offer a hypothesis based on the degree of gene flow between host populations affected or unaffected by a given parasite. Forbes and Mlynarek's 'coevolutionary release hypothesis' argues that when some host populations are not exposed to the parasite, gene flow from the unaffected host population hinders the affected host population's ability to evolve resistance to the parasite.