Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The Red Queen hypothesis has been invoked by some authors to explain evolution of aging. [30] [31] The main idea is that aging is favored by natural selection since it allows faster adaptation to changing conditions, especially in order to keep pace with the evolution of pathogens, predators and prey. [31]
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 ...
Evolution of Infectious Disease is a 1993 book by the evolutionary biologist Paul W. Ewald. In this book, Ewald contests the traditional view that parasites should evolve toward benign coexistence with their hosts. He draws on various studies that contradict this dogma and asserts his theory based on fundamental evolutionary principles.
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic is 2012 non-fiction book by David Quammen.The book, written in narrative form, tells through the personal experiences of the author, who interviewed numerous pathologists and virologists globally to trace the evolution of some of the major pathogens that have affected the human species following a species leap (), a natural process by ...
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.
Therefore, diseases ecology seeks to understand the links between ecological interactions and disease evolution. [2] New emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (infecting both wildlife and humans) are increasing at unprecedented rates which can have lasting impacts on public health, ecosystem health, and biodiversity .
In evolutionary biology, an evolutionary arms race is an ongoing struggle between competing sets of co-evolving genes, phenotypic and behavioral traits that develop escalating adaptations and counter-adaptations against each other, resembling the geopolitical concept of an arms race.
Another evolutionary mode arises where evolution is reciprocal, but is among a group of species rather than exactly two. This is variously called guild or diffuse coevolution. For instance, a trait in several species of flowering plant , such as offering its nectar at the end of a long tube, can coevolve with a trait in one or several species ...