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Host range and local parasite adaptation.

Marc J Lajeunesse1, Mark R Forbes

  • 1Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, Canada KIS 5B6.

Proceedings. Biological Sciences
|April 6, 2002
PubMed
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Parasites with broad host ranges are less likely to show local adaptation to specific hosts. This suggests evolutionary lags in diffuse coevolution may explain why local adaptation is not always observed in parasite-host dynamics.

Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Parasitology

Background:

  • Local adaptation is expected in parasite-host systems, but empirical evidence varies, with some studies showing adaptation, others null results, and some maladaptation.
  • Explanations for these varied results include gene flow overwhelming local dynamics or evolutionary lags.
  • Host range is a potential factor influencing the degree of local parasite adaptation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether parasite host range influences the likelihood of demonstrating local adaptation to hosts.
  • To test the hypothesis that broad host range parasites (BHR) are less likely to exhibit local adaptation compared to narrow host range parasites (NHR).

Main Methods:

  • A meta-analysis of 32 independent experiments testing for local parasite adaptation was conducted.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Parasites in the collated studies were categorized as having either broad host ranges (BHR) or narrow host ranges (NHR).
  • Item response theory (IRT) was employed to analyze the effect sizes of local adaptation across different host range categories.

    • Main Results:

    • Studies involving broad host range parasites (BHR) showed a significantly lower average effect size for local adaptation compared to studies with narrow host range parasites (NHR).
    • Out of 32 tests, 25 involved BHR parasites and exhibited weaker evidence for local adaptation than the 7 tests involving NHR parasites.
    • This indicates that studies using BHR parasites are less likely to detect or demonstrate local parasite adaptation.

    Conclusions:

    • The findings suggest that broad host range parasites are less prone to local adaptation, potentially due to longer evolutionary lags during diffuse coevolution.
    • Evolutionary lags, rather than experimental artifacts or other confounds, are proposed as the primary reason for the reduced likelihood of observing local adaptation in BHR parasite systems.
    • Host range is a critical factor to consider when examining patterns of local adaptation in host-parasite interactions.