Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 18, 2026

Oral Bacterial Infection and Shedding in Drosophila melanogaster
Published on: May 31, 2018
Trade-offs and the evolution of virulence of microparasites: do details matter?
Vitaly V Ganusov1, Rustom Antia
1Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. vganuso@emory.edu
Abstract:
Models of the within-host dynamics of parasites have been used to consider the evolution of microparasites causing acute infections in vertebrate hosts. In this paper, we use these models to examine how the level of virulence to which a parasite evolves, depends on factors such as the relationship between parasite density and its rate of transmission from infected hosts, and the mechanism of parasite-induced pathogenesis. We show that changes in the terms describing transmissibility and pathogenesis may lead to dramatic differences in the level of virulence to which a parasite evolves. This suggests that no single factor is likely to be responsible for the differences in virulence of different parasites, and that understanding of the evolution of virulence of parasites will require a detailed quantitative understanding of the interaction between the parasite and its host.
Related Concept Videos
Transduction
Evolution of New Traits in Microbes
Evolution of Microbial Genome
Microbial Interactions: Parasitism
Colonisation of Pathogens

