title: Effects of host heterogeneity on pathogen diversity and evolution.
abstract: Phenotypic variation is common in most pathogens, yet the mechanisms that maintain this diversity are still poorly understood. We asked whether continuous host variation in susceptibility helps maintain phenotypic variation, using experiments conducted with a baculovirus that infects gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) larvae. We found that an empirically observed tradeoff between mean transmission rate and variation in transmission, which results from host heterogeneity, promotes long-term coexistence of two pathogen types in simulations of a population model. This tradeoff introduces an alternative strategy for the pathogen: a low-transmission, low-variability type can coexist with the high-transmission type favoured by classical non-heterogeneity models. In addition, this tradeoff can help explain the extensive phenotypic variation we observed in field-collected pathogen isolates, in traits affecting virus fitness including transmission and environmental persistence. Similar heterogeneity tradeoffs might be a general mechanism promoting phenotypic variation in any pathogen for which hosts vary continuously in susceptibility.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology & Evolution, University of Chicago, 900 E 57th St, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA.|Biology Department, Radford University, PO BOX 6931, Radford, VA, 24141, USA.
authors.forename: Arietta E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Fleming-Davies
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Colorado, 526 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA.
authors.forename: Vanja
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Dukic
authors.affiliation: Department of Science, Systems and Models, Roskilde University, Universitetsvej 1, DK-4000, Roskilde, Denmark.
authors.forename: Viggo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Andreasen
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology & Evolution, University of Chicago, 900 E 57th St, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA.
authors.forename: Greg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dwyer
keywords: Coexistence; competition; evolutionary ecology; host heterogeneity; host-pathogen interactions; tradeoffs