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The problem of mediocre generalists: population genetics and eco-evolutionary perspectives on host breadth evolution in pathogens

Many of our theories for the generation and maintenance of diversity in nature depend on the existence of specialist biotic interactions which, in host–pathogen systems, also shape cross-species disease emergence. As such, niche breadth evolution, especially in host–parasite systems, remains a centr...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Visher, Elisa, Boots, Mike
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7482275/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32811306
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.1230
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author Visher, Elisa
Boots, Mike
author_facet Visher, Elisa
Boots, Mike
author_sort Visher, Elisa
collection PubMed
description Many of our theories for the generation and maintenance of diversity in nature depend on the existence of specialist biotic interactions which, in host–pathogen systems, also shape cross-species disease emergence. As such, niche breadth evolution, especially in host–parasite systems, remains a central focus in ecology and evolution. The predominant explanation for the existence of specialization in the literature is that niche breadth is constrained by trade-offs, such that a generalist is less fit on any particular environment than a given specialist. This trade-off theory has been used to predict niche breadth (co)evolution in both population genetics and eco-evolutionary models, with the different modelling methods providing separate, complementary insights. However, trade-offs may be far from universal, so population genetics theory has also proposed alternate mechanisms for costly generalism, including mutation accumulation. However, these mechanisms have yet to be integrated into eco-evolutionary models in order to understand how the mechanism of costly generalism alters the biological and ecological circumstances predicted to maintain specialism. In this review, we outline how population genetics and eco-evolutionary models based on trade-offs have provided insights for parasite niche breadth evolution and argue that the population genetics-derived mutation accumulation theory needs to be better integrated into eco-evolutionary theory.
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spelling pubmed-74822752020-09-21 The problem of mediocre generalists: population genetics and eco-evolutionary perspectives on host breadth evolution in pathogens Visher, Elisa Boots, Mike Proc Biol Sci Review Articles Many of our theories for the generation and maintenance of diversity in nature depend on the existence of specialist biotic interactions which, in host–pathogen systems, also shape cross-species disease emergence. As such, niche breadth evolution, especially in host–parasite systems, remains a central focus in ecology and evolution. The predominant explanation for the existence of specialization in the literature is that niche breadth is constrained by trade-offs, such that a generalist is less fit on any particular environment than a given specialist. This trade-off theory has been used to predict niche breadth (co)evolution in both population genetics and eco-evolutionary models, with the different modelling methods providing separate, complementary insights. However, trade-offs may be far from universal, so population genetics theory has also proposed alternate mechanisms for costly generalism, including mutation accumulation. However, these mechanisms have yet to be integrated into eco-evolutionary models in order to understand how the mechanism of costly generalism alters the biological and ecological circumstances predicted to maintain specialism. In this review, we outline how population genetics and eco-evolutionary models based on trade-offs have provided insights for parasite niche breadth evolution and argue that the population genetics-derived mutation accumulation theory needs to be better integrated into eco-evolutionary theory. The Royal Society 2020-08-26 2020-08-19 /pmc/articles/PMC7482275/ /pubmed/32811306 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.1230 Text en © 2020 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Review Articles
Visher, Elisa
Boots, Mike
The problem of mediocre generalists: population genetics and eco-evolutionary perspectives on host breadth evolution in pathogens
title The problem of mediocre generalists: population genetics and eco-evolutionary perspectives on host breadth evolution in pathogens
title_full The problem of mediocre generalists: population genetics and eco-evolutionary perspectives on host breadth evolution in pathogens
title_fullStr The problem of mediocre generalists: population genetics and eco-evolutionary perspectives on host breadth evolution in pathogens
title_full_unstemmed The problem of mediocre generalists: population genetics and eco-evolutionary perspectives on host breadth evolution in pathogens
title_short The problem of mediocre generalists: population genetics and eco-evolutionary perspectives on host breadth evolution in pathogens
title_sort problem of mediocre generalists: population genetics and eco-evolutionary perspectives on host breadth evolution in pathogens
topic Review Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7482275/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32811306
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.1230
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