Host-parasite coevolution in populations of constant and variable size

BACKGROUND: The matching-allele and gene-for-gene models are widely used in mathematical approaches that study the dynamics of host-parasite interactions. Agrawal and Lively (Evolutionary Ecology Research 4:79–90, 2002) captured these two models in a single framework and numerically explored the associated time discrete dynamics of allele frequencies. RESULTS: Here, we present a detailed analytical investigation of this unifying framework in continuous time and provide a generalization. We extend the model to take into account changing population sizes, which result from the antagonistic nature of the interaction and follow the Lotka-Volterra equations. Under this extension, the population dynamics become most complex as the model moves away from pure matching-allele and becomes more gene-for-gene-like. While the population densities oscillate with a single oscillation frequency in the pure matching-allele model, a second oscillation frequency arises under gene-for-gene-like conditions. These observations hold for general interaction parameters and allow to infer generic patterns of the dynamics. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that experimentally inferred dynamical patterns of host-parasite coevolution should typically be much more complex than the popular illustrations of Red Queen dynamics. A single parasite that infects more than one host can substantially alter the cyclic dynamics.