Coevolution of parasite virulence and host mating strategies

Parasites are thought to play an important role in sexual selection and the evolution of mating strategies, which in turn are likely to be critical to the transmission and therefore the evolution of parasites. Despite this clear interdependence we have little understanding of parasite-mediated sexua...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2015-10, Vol.112 (43), p.13290-13295
Main Authors: Ashby, Ben, Boots, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal reproduction
Animals
Biological Evolution
Biological Sciences
Evolution
Host-Parasite Interactions
Mating Preference, Animal - physiology
Models, Biological
Parasites
Parasites - pathogenicity
Virulence
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Summary:Parasites are thought to play an important role in sexual selection and the evolution of mating strategies, which in turn are likely to be critical to the transmission and therefore the evolution of parasites. Despite this clear interdependence we have little understanding of parasite-mediated sexual selection in the context of reciprocal parasite evolution. Here we develop a general coevolutionary model between host mate preference and the virulence of a sexually transmitted parasite. We show when the characteristics of both the host and parasite lead to coevolutionarily stable strategies or runaway selection, and when coevolutionary cycling between high and low levels of host mate choosiness and virulence is possible. A prominent argument against parasites being involved in sexual selection is that they should evolve to become less virulent when transmission depends on host mating success. The present study, however, demonstrates that coevolution can maintain stable host mate choosiness and parasite virulence or indeed coevolutionary cycling of both traits. We predict that choosiness should vary inversely with parasite virulence and that both relatively long and short life spans select against choosy behavior in the host. The model also reveals that hosts can evolve different behavioral responses from the same initial conditions, which highlights difficulties in using comparative analysis to detect parasite-mediated sexual selection. Taken as a whole, our results emphasize the importance of viewing parasite-mediated sexual selection in the context of coevolution.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1508397112