Virulence evolution of a parasite infecting male and female hosts

Abstract

Parasites experience different tradeoffs between transmission and virulence in male and female hosts if the sexes vary in life history or disease-related traits. We determine the evolutionarily stable levels of exploitation by pathogens under two scenarios: an unconstrained pathogen that expresses different exploitation rates within each host type as well as a pathogen constrained to express the same exploitation rate in each sex. We show that an unconstrained horizontally-transmitted parasite evolves to express the same sex-specific exploitation rate within each sex as it would in a host population composed entirely of hosts with that sexs resistance and intrinsic death rate. In contrast, the ESS exploitation rate of a constrained pathogen is affected by sex-differences in susceptibility and non-random contact patterns between host types that differ in resistance. As the amount of within-sex transmission increases, the ESS shifts closer to the optimum trait value in the more susceptible sex. Allowing for some degree of vertical transmission, the exploitation rate expressed in females (but not males) changes with contact pattern even in unconstrained pathogens. Differences in contact pattern and susceptibility play an important role in determining the ESS exploitation rate by shifting the reproductive value of each host type.