title: Genetic covariation between effectiveness and cost of defence in aphids.
abstract: Ecological immunology distinguishes between the long-term evolutionary costs of possessing defences against parasites and the short-term costs of using them. Evolutionary biologists have typically focused on the former in the search for constraints on the evolution of resistance. Here, we show in the peach-potato aphid, Myzus persicae, that short-term costs may be of equal evolutionary importance. Survivors of more resistant aphid clones suffered a higher reduction of fecundity upon parasitoid attack than survivors of more susceptible clones. This genetically based trade-off between benefits and costs of defence may limit the evolution of increased resistance and explain the maintenance of genetic variation for resistance under environmental variation in parasitism risk.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Zoology, University of Zürich, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland. chrisvor@zool.uzh.ch
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vorburger
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gouskov
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: von Burg