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Population ecology is a sub-field of ecology that deals with the dynamics of species populations and how these populations interact with the environment. [15] It is the study of how the population sizes of species living together in groups change over time and space, and was one of the first aspects of ecology to be studied and modelled mathematically.
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]
Suppose there are two species of animals, a rabbit (prey) and a fox (predator). If the initial densities are 10 rabbits and 10 foxes per square kilometre, one can plot the progression of the two species over time; given the parameters that the growth and death rates of rabbits are 1.1 and 0.4 while that of foxes are 0.1 and 0.4 respectively.
The loss of predators, that mitigate the ability for pathogen transmission, can increase the rate of disease transmission. [14] Human anthropogenic induced climate change is becoming problematic, as parasites and their associated diseases, can move to higher latitudes with increasing global temperatures. New diseases can therefore infect ...
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.
Among pathogens of mammals, the rabies virus affects the host's central nervous system, eventually killing it, but perhaps helping to disseminate the virus by modifying the host's behaviour. [17] Among the parasitic wasps, Glyptapanteles modifies the behaviour of its host caterpillar to defend the pupae of the wasps after they emerge from the ...
The mathematics lead to a modified version of Hamilton's rule where: q>c/b where q (the probability of knowing the social score) must be greater than the cost benefit ratio [ 36 ] [ 37 ] Organisms that use social score are termed Discriminators, and require a higher level of cognition than strategies of simple direct reciprocity.
Mathematical models need to integrate the increasing volume of data being generated on host-pathogen interactions. Many theoretical studies of the population dynamics, structure and evolution of infectious diseases of plants and animals, including humans, are concerned with this problem. [27] Research topics include: antigenic shift ...