Identifying factors that promote host shifts is crucial for understanding the origin and maintenance of biodiversity as well as the emergence of novel infectious diseases. Previous research has demonstrated that the opportunity for cross-species transmission and parasite adaptation can play an important role in determining if and when a host shift occurs. Another possibility is that the genetic basis of infection and resistance, when coupled with the process of coevolution (i.e., coevolutionary genetics), plays a pivotal role in determining when, if ever, a host shift occurs. Here we explore this possibility by developing and analyzing a genetically explicit epidemiological model that allows for coevolution and alternative forms of infection genetics. Approximate analytical solutions to this model demonstrate that infection genetics can influence the likelihood of a host shift. Stochastic simulations confirm the important role of infection genetics but in some cases reveal that coevolutionary dynamics modulate the likelihood of host shifts. Our results demonstrate that predicting host shifts requires a detailed understanding of the underlying genetics of infection and resistance. Thus, identifying the genetic architecture of infection and resistance in real systems is of central importance.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 September 2014.
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#24,787,356
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#3,826
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#169,014
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Outputs of similar age from The American Naturalist
#25
of 31 outputs
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