Higher Disease Prevalence Can Induce Greater Sociality: A Game Theoretic Coevolutionary Model

Bonds, Matthew H.; Keenan, Donald C.; Leidner, Andrew J.; Rohani, Pejman

doi:10.1111/j.0014-3820.2005.tb01056.x

Cited by 40 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Hosts with intermediate life spans, however, have moderate levels of disease, so the ability to discriminate between infected and noninfected individuals is advantageous. This pattern is reminiscent of other biological phenomena that are predicted to peak at intermediate levels of disease, including investment in immune responses (44), sociality (45), sexual reproduction (41), and serial monogamy (19). Life span has previously been shown to be important in the evolution of defenses against parasitism, but existing theory has tended to focus on immune responses rather than behavioral defenses (46).…”

Section: Infectious Dose) (H) Mate Choice Is Maximized (And Virulencmentioning

confidence: 86%

Coevolution of parasite virulence and host mating strategies

Ashby

Boots

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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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 parasitemediated sexual selection. Taken as a whole, our results emphasize the importance of viewing parasite-mediated sexual selection in the context of coevolution.host-parasite coevolution | mate choice | virulence | transmission avoidance | sexually transmitted infection S ince Hamilton and Zuk (1) first proposed that parasitism may explain the existence of secondary sex traits such as the peacock's tail, there has been considerable interest in the role that parasites play in sexual selection and the evolution of mating strategies (2-19). A prominent theory, known as the transmissionavoidance hypothesis, posits that secondary sex traits, and more generally, mating strategies, have evolved to limit the risk of contracting an infection (10). Although this theory emphasizes the importance of parasites in determining mating strategies, it is clear that different mating strategies will have an impact on infectious disease transmission and therefore influence parasite evolution. However, despite this clear interdependence we lack a coevolutionary theory of mating strategies that captures reciprocal adaptations by both species.Sex can leave individuals at risk of infection due to sustained close contact with sexual partners or through the transfer of genetic material (20). Hence, sexually transmitted infections, which are common in both plants (21) and animals (22), are likely to be a key factor in the evolution of mating strategies. Furthermore, sexually transmitted infections typically exhibit different epidemiological dynamics (17, 23) and disease outcomes (e.g., sterility rather than mortality; ref. 22) to other in...

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Section: Infectious Dose) (H) Mate Choice Is Maximized (And Virulencmentioning

confidence: 86%

Coevolution of parasite virulence and host mating strategies

Ashby

Boots

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…To capture these basic interactions between economics and disease ecology we consider a model where m, g and b are functions of per capita income, which in turn is determined by individual health. We maintain the conventional assumption from the evolution of virulence literature that pathogen virulence, n, is determined by the pathogen (Bremmermann & Pickering 1983;Frank 1996;Day 2001;Bonds et al 2005;Delfino & Simmons 2005).…”

Section: Our Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Poverty trap formed by the ecology of infectious diseases

et al. 2009

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While most of the world has enjoyed exponential economic growth, more than one-sixth of the world is today roughly as poor as their ancestors were many generations ago. Widely accepted general explanations for the persistence of such poverty have been elusive and are needed by the international development community. Building on a well-established model of human infectious diseases, we show how formally integrating simple economic and disease ecology models can naturally give rise to poverty traps, where initial economic and epidemiological conditions determine the long-term trajectory of the health and economic development of a society. This poverty trap may therefore be broken by improving health conditions of the population. More generally, we demonstrate that simple human ecological models can help explain broad patterns of modern economic organization.

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“…As a consequence, new questions have arisen about the mechanisms that drive associations between parasitism and sociality (Wilson et al 2003;Bonds et al 2005), and many new studies have been conducted to assess the links between parasite risk and group size, including both field and comparative research. Simultaneously, meta-analysis techniques have grown in sophistication, flexibility, and implementation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Animals Living in Larger Groups Experience Greater Parasitism? A Meta-Analysis

Rifkin

Nunn

Garamszegi

2012

The American Naturalist

179

177

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. abstract: Parasitism is widely viewed as the primary cost of sociality and a constraint on group size, yet studies report varied associations between group size and parasitism. Using the largest database of its kind, we performed a meta-analysis of 69 studies of the relationship between group size and parasite risk, as measured by parasitism and immune defenses. We predicted a positive correlation between group size and parasitism with organisms that show contagious and environmental transmission and a negative correlation for searching parasites, parasitoids, and possibly vector-borne parasites (on the basis of the encounter-dilution effect). Overall, we found a positive effect of group size ( ) that varied in magr p 0.187 nitude across transmission modes and measures of parasite risk, with only weak indications of publication bias. Among different groups of hosts, we found a stronger relationship between group size and parasite risk in birds than in mammals, which may be driven by ecological and social factors. A metaregression showed that effect sizes increased with maximum group size. Phylogenetic meta-analyses revealed no evidence for phylogenetic signal in the strength of the group size-parasitism relationship. We conclude that group size is a weak predictor of parasite risk except in species that live in large aggregations, such as colonial birds, in which effect sizes are larger.

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Higher Disease Prevalence Can Induce Greater Sociality: A Game Theoretic Coevolutionary Model

Cited by 40 publications

References 58 publications

Coevolution of parasite virulence and host mating strategies

Coevolution of parasite virulence and host mating strategies

Poverty trap formed by the ecology of infectious diseases

Do Animals Living in Larger Groups Experience Greater Parasitism? A Meta-Analysis

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