How flexible parasites can outsmart their hosts for evolutionary dominance
Antagonistic coevolution between hosts and parasites substantially impacts community structure, with parasites displaying fluctuating selection or arms race dynamics during coevolution. The traditional matching alleles (MA) and gene-for-gene (GFG) models have been used to describe the dynamics and i...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/179840 |
| _version_ | 1826114571196170240 |
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| author | Wen, Tao Koonin, Eugene V. Cheong, Kang Hao |
| author2 | School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences |
| author_facet | School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Wen, Tao Koonin, Eugene V. Cheong, Kang Hao |
| author_sort | Wen, Tao |
| collection | NTU |
| description | Antagonistic coevolution between hosts and parasites substantially impacts community structure, with parasites displaying fluctuating selection or arms race dynamics during coevolution. The traditional matching alleles (MA) and gene-for-gene (GFG) models have been used to describe the dynamics and interaction of host-parasite coevolution, with these models assuming that parasites adopt a single strategy when competing with other parasites. We present a nonlinear dynamic population model that challenges this assumption, showing how a parasite that is disadvantaged under either the MA or the GFG model can win the competition by switching between the two losing strategies based on an external environmental cue, internal processes, or stochastic decision-making. This counterintuitive outcome is analogous to Parrondo's paradox, a game-theoretic concept that shows how alternating between two losing strategies can result in a winning outcome. Our numerical experiments support the validity of this model, suggesting that parasites can greatly benefit from maximum flexibility in their interactions with hosts. The flexibility of successful parasites puts an extra burden on the host defenses that have to adapt to different strategies of the parasites. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the coevolution of parasites and hosts, with broad implications for the evolution of complex ecological systems. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T03:41:16Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/179840 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T03:41:16Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1798402024-09-02T15:35:05Z How flexible parasites can outsmart their hosts for evolutionary dominance Wen, Tao Koonin, Eugene V. Cheong, Kang Hao School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Mathematical Sciences Antagonistic coevolution Parasite Antagonistic coevolution between hosts and parasites substantially impacts community structure, with parasites displaying fluctuating selection or arms race dynamics during coevolution. The traditional matching alleles (MA) and gene-for-gene (GFG) models have been used to describe the dynamics and interaction of host-parasite coevolution, with these models assuming that parasites adopt a single strategy when competing with other parasites. We present a nonlinear dynamic population model that challenges this assumption, showing how a parasite that is disadvantaged under either the MA or the GFG model can win the competition by switching between the two losing strategies based on an external environmental cue, internal processes, or stochastic decision-making. This counterintuitive outcome is analogous to Parrondo's paradox, a game-theoretic concept that shows how alternating between two losing strategies can result in a winning outcome. Our numerical experiments support the validity of this model, suggesting that parasites can greatly benefit from maximum flexibility in their interactions with hosts. The flexibility of successful parasites puts an extra burden on the host defenses that have to adapt to different strategies of the parasites. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the coevolution of parasites and hosts, with broad implications for the evolution of complex ecological systems. Ministry of Education (MOE) Published version K.H.C. and T.W. were supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) Academic Research Fund (AcRF) Tier 2 Grant No. MOET2EP50120-0021. E.V.K. was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health of the USA (National Library of Medicine). 2024-08-27T04:44:07Z 2024-08-27T04:44:07Z 2024 Journal Article Wen, T., Koonin, E. V. & Cheong, K. H. (2024). How flexible parasites can outsmart their hosts for evolutionary dominance. Physical Review Research, 6(2), 023104-. https://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.023104 2643-1564 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/179840 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.023104 2-s2.0-85192088457 2 6 023104 en MOET2EP50120-0021 Physical Review Research © 2024 The Authors. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Mathematical Sciences Antagonistic coevolution Parasite Wen, Tao Koonin, Eugene V. Cheong, Kang Hao How flexible parasites can outsmart their hosts for evolutionary dominance |
| title | How flexible parasites can outsmart their hosts for evolutionary dominance |
| title_full | How flexible parasites can outsmart their hosts for evolutionary dominance |
| title_fullStr | How flexible parasites can outsmart their hosts for evolutionary dominance |
| title_full_unstemmed | How flexible parasites can outsmart their hosts for evolutionary dominance |
| title_short | How flexible parasites can outsmart their hosts for evolutionary dominance |
| title_sort | how flexible parasites can outsmart their hosts for evolutionary dominance |
| topic | Mathematical Sciences Antagonistic coevolution Parasite |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/179840 |
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