Why is it that some parasites cause high levels of host damage (ie virulence) whereas others
are relatively benign? There are now numerous reviews of virulence evolution in the …

Inflammation is a pervasive phenomenon that operates during severe perturbations of
homeostasis, such as infection, injury, and exposure to contaminants, and is triggered by …

Parasites and infectious diseases are everywhere and represent some of the most potent
forces sha** the natural world. They affect almost every aspect imaginable in the life of …

At a time of unprecedented expansion in the life sciences, evolution is the one theory that
transcends all of biology. Any observation of a living system must ultimately be interpreted in …

Several evolutionary processes influence virulence, the amount of damage a parasite
causes to its host. For example, parasites are favored to exploit their hosts prudently to …

Co-infections by multiple pathogen strains are common in the wild. Theory predicts co-
infections to have major consequences for both within-and between-host disease dynamics …

Following a sixty-year hiatus in western medicine, bacteriophages (phages) are again being
advocated for treating and preventing bacterial infections. Are attempts to use phages for …

Earlier ideas that parasites evolve toward becoming harmless to their hosts have, in recent
years, given way to more analytic studies, focused on the 'basic reproductive rate', R o, of …

Why do parasites harm their hosts? Intuition suggests that parasites should evolve to be
benign whenever the host is needed for transmission. Yet a growing theoretical literature …

In many insect species, males infected with microbes related to Wolbachia pipientis are
“incompatible” with uninfected females. Crosses between infected males and uninfected …