Water fleas of the genus Daphnia have been a model system for hundreds of years and is
among the best studied ecological model organisms to date. Daphnia are planktonic …

Co-evolution between host and pathogen is, in principle, a powerful determinant of the
biology and genetics of infection and disease. Yet co-evolution has proven difficult to …

Balancing selection is an evolutionary process that maintains genetic polymorphisms at
selected loci and strongly reduces the likelihood of allele fixation. When allelic …

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 …

Life history theory seeks to explain the evolution of the major features of life cycles by
analyzing the ecological factors that shape age-specific schedules of growth, reproduction …

The evolutionary–ecology approach to studying immune defences has generated a number
of hypotheses that help to explain the observed variance in responses. Here, selected topics …

Antagonistic interactions between hosts and parasites are a key structuring force in natural
populations, driving coevolution,. However, direct empirical evidence of long-term host …

Existing and emerging pathogens pose unusual challenges for conservation because of
their potential to drive rapid changes in the numerical abundance and genetic composition …

Characteristics of hosts and parasites have a genetic basis, and thus can be shaped by
coevolution. Infections measured under laboratory conditions have shown that the …

Acquired immunity in vertebrates is characterized by immunological memory and specificity,
whereas the innate defence systems of invertebrates are assumed to have no specific …