Wednesday, October 14, 2020 4 pm Berlin
Why do individuals differ when facing infection? Taking an evolutionary biology perspective and using statistical and functional genetics tools, my research aims to understand the role for genetics, phenotypic plasticity, stochasticity, host sexual dimorphism, and the environment on the outcome of infections.
Parasitism is one of the most common organismal lifestyles, and antagonistic interactions between hosts and parasites are a key structuring force in natural populations of all organisms, including humans. Yet, it is often not clear why some individuals suffer strongly from an infection, while others do not. Part of the answer resides in the variability in the success of the parasite passing through a sequence of steps, starting with encountering the host, and ending with transmission.
We show that different consecutive steps of the infection process can impose specific selection pressures on pathogens and make different contributions to shaping host-parasite interactions, including coevolution.
