O'Keefe Kara J, Antonovics Janis
Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA.
Am Nat. 2002 Jun;159(6):597-605. doi: 10.1086/339990.
We investigate the evolution of virulence of pathogens that reduce their hosts' fitness primarily by affecting host fecundity. We show that, under many conditions, such sterilizing pathogens evolve high rather than intermediate levels of virulence, and this pushes the pathogen population and sometimes the host population toward extinction. We also show that spatial population structure can reverse this evolutionary result and allow the persistence of intermediate-virulence pathogens. Thus, spatial population structure may be vital to the persistence of sterilizing pathogens in nature.
我们研究了主要通过影响宿主繁殖力来降低宿主适应性的病原体毒力的演变。我们发现，在许多情况下，这种使宿主绝育的病原体进化出的是高毒力水平而非中等毒力水平，这会将病原体种群，有时也会将宿主种群推向灭绝。我们还表明，空间种群结构可以扭转这一进化结果，并使中等毒力的病原体得以持续存在。因此，空间种群结构对于自然界中使宿主绝育的病原体的持续存在可能至关重要。
