Beyond Mortality: Sterility As a Neglected Component of Parasite Virulence

Virulence is generally defined as the reduction in host fitness following infection by a parasite (see Box 1 for glossary) [1]. In general, parasite exploitation of host resources may reduce host survival (mortality virulence), decrease host fecundity (sterility virulence), or even have sub-lethal e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS pathogens 2015-12, Vol.11 (12), p.e1005229-e1005229
Main Authors: Abbate, Jessica L, Kada, Sarah, Lion, Sébastien
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biodiversity
Biodiversity and Ecology
Environmental Sciences
Epidemiology
Host-Parasite Interactions - physiology
Host-parasite relationships
Human health and pathology
Humans
Infectious diseases
Infertility - parasitology
Life Sciences
Microbiological research
Microbiology and Parasitology
Mortality
Opinion
Parasites
Parasites - pathogenicity
Parasitology
Physiological aspects
Populations and Evolution
Santé publique et épidémiologie
Studies
Virulence (Microbiology)
Virulence - physiology
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Summary:Virulence is generally defined as the reduction in host fitness following infection by a parasite (see Box 1 for glossary) [1]. In general, parasite exploitation of host resources may reduce host survival (mortality virulence), decrease host fecundity (sterility virulence), or even have sub-lethal effects that disturb the way individuals interact within a community (morbidity) [2,3]. In fact, the virulence of many parasites involves a combination of these various effects (Box 2). In practice, however, virulence is most often defined as disease-induced mortality [1, 4-6]. This is especially true in the theoretical literature, where the evolution of sterility virulence, morbidity, and mixed strategies of host exploitation have received relatively little attention. While the focus on mortality effects has allowed for easy comparison between models and, thus, rapid advancement of the field, we ask whether these theoretical simplifications have led us to inadvertently minimize the evolutionary importance of host sterilization and secondary virulence effects. As explicit theoretical work on morbidity is currently lacking (but see [7]), our aim in this Opinion piece is to discuss what is understood about sterility virulence evolution, its adaptive potential, and the implications for parasites that utilize a combination of host survival and reproductive resources.
ISSN:1553-7374
1553-7366
1553-7374
DOI:10.1371/journal.ppat.1005229