Why should parasite resistance be costly?
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Updated: Oct 2, 2026

Inoculating Anopheles gambiae Mosquitoes with Beads to Induce and Measure the Melanization Immune Response
Published on: January 12, 2017
Mark C Rigby1, Ryan F Hechinger, Lori Stevens
1Dept of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. rigby@lifesci.ucsb.edu
Abstract:
Parasite resistance is sometimes associated with fitness costs. Costs of resistance are fundamentally important in epidemiology, and in the ecology and evolution of host-parasite interactions. The cost of resistance is often envisioned as the cost of re-allocating limiting resources to resistance machinery from other traits. This popular paradigm has resulted in a spate of research that assumes a fitness cost to resistance. We comment on this trend and propose a working framework of various resistance means and mechanisms. Within these means and mechanisms, we suggest that many are not likely to incur significant fitness costs.
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