title: Evaluating the evidence for virus/host co-evolution.
abstract: There is currently much debate about the timescales of virus evolution. Some viruses may have co-evolved with human populations for tens of thousands of years, or even with our primate ancestors over many millions of years. However, calibrations of the rate of short-term virus evolution lead to estimates of dates for viral ancestors that are orders of magnitude more recent, and a number of the proposed host-virus co-divergence scenarios have been questioned. Other considerations indicate that the proposed recent timescales for virus evolution are implausible, that co-divergence has been rejected prematurely, and that long-term evolutionary rates are very much slower than short-term rates. There is a need to understand the biological basis of this discrepancy and to develop evolutionary models that can accommodate this.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK. paul.sharp@ed.ec.uk
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Sharp
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Simmonds
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004267:DNA Viruses / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D054884:Host-Pathogen Interactions; D006801:Humans; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000235:genetics* / Q000821:virology*