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Hosts and parasites exert reciprocal selective pressures on each other, which may lead to rapid reciprocal adaptation.For organisms with short generation times, host–parasite coevolution can be observed in comparatively small time periods, making it possible to study evolutionary change in real-time under both field and laboratory conditions.
For example, exploitative interactions between a predator and prey can result in the extinction of the victim (the prey, in this case), as the predator, by definition, kills the prey, and thus reduces its population. [2] Another effect of these interactions is in the coevolutionary "hot" and "cold spots" put forth by geographic mosaic theory ...
A recently observed example has as protagonists M. xanthus (predator) and E. coli (prey) in which a parallel evolution of both species can be observed through genomic and phenotypic modifications, producing in future generations a better adaptation of one of the species that is counteracted by the evolution of the other, thus generating an arms ...
The extensive research about pathogens shows that they can evolve within a month, whereas animal hosts such as humans take centuries to make large evolutionary changes. [5] Parasite virulence and host resistance are variables that strongly impact a pathogen's ability to replicate and be distributed to many hosts.
Mobbing is the harassing of a predator by many prey animals. Mobbing is usually done to protect the young in social colonies. For example, red colobus monkeys exhibit mobbing when threatened by chimpanzees, a common predator. The male red colobus monkeys group together and place themselves between predators and the group's females and juveniles.
One example of a potent fungal animal pathogen are Microsporidia - obligate intracellular parasitic fungi that largely affect insects, but may also affect vertebrates including humans, causing the intestinal infection microsporidiosis. [77] Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, is transmitted by Ixodes ticks.
Disease ecology is a sub-discipline of ecology concerned with the mechanisms, patterns, and effects of host-pathogen interactions, particularly those of infectious diseases. [1] For example, it examines how parasites spread through and influence wildlife populations and communities.
Spider wasps paralyse and eventually kill their hosts, but are considered parasitoids, not predators.. At the most basic level, predators kill and eat other organisms. However, the concept of predation is broad, defined differently in different contexts, and includes a wide variety of feeding methods; moreover, some relationships that result in the prey's death are not necessarily called pre