Heriot-Watt University Research Gateway Host–parasite fluctuating selection in the absence of specificity Citation for published version: Best, A, Ashby, B, White, A, Bowers, R, Buckling, A, Koskella, B & Boots, M 2017, 'Host–parasite fluctuating selection in the absence of specificity', Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 284, no. 1866, 20171615. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.1615 Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.1098/rspb.2017.1615 Link: Link to publication record in Heriot-Watt Research Portal Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Published In: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via Heriot-Watt Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. 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Sep. 2021 Downloaded from http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/ on March 5, 2018 Host–parasite fluctuating selection in the rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org absence of specificity Alex Best1, Ben Ashby2,3, Andy White4, Roger Bowers5, Angus Buckling6, Britt Koskella3 and Mike Boots3,6 Research 1School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7RH, UK 2Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, UK Cite this article: Best A, Ashby B, White A, 3Department of Integrative Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA 4 Bowers R, Buckling A, Koskella B, Boots M. Department of Mathematics and the Maxwell Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK 2017 Host–parasite fluctuating selection in 5Department of Mathematical Sciences, Division of Applied Mathematics, The University of Liverpool, the absence of specificity. Proc. R. Soc. B 284: Mathematical Sciences Building, Liverpool L69 7ZL, UK 20171615. 6Biosciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus, http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.1615 Treliever Road, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9EZ, UK AB, 0000-0001-6260-6516; MB, 0000-0003-3763-6136 Received: 19 July 2017 Fluctuating selection driven by coevolution between hosts and parasites is Accepted: 2 October 2017 important for the generation of host and parasite diversity across space and time. Theory has focused primarily on infection genetics, with highly specific ‘matching-allele’ frameworks more likely to generate fluctuating selection dynamics (FSD) than ‘gene-for-gene’ (generalist–specialist) frameworks. However, the environment, ecological feedbacks and life-history character- Subject Category: istics may all play a role in determining when FSD occurs. Here, we develop Evolution eco-evolutionary models with explicit ecological dynamics to explore the ecological, epidemiological and host life-history drivers of FSD. Our key Subject Areas: result is to demonstrate for the first time, to our knowledge, that specificity evolution, theoretical biology, health and between hosts and parasites is not required to generate FSD. Furthermore, highly specific host–parasite interactions produce unstable, less robust stochas- disease and epidemiology tic fluctuations in contrast to interactions that lack specificity altogether or those that vary from generalist to specialist, which produce predictable limit cycles. Keywords: Given the ubiquity of ecological feedbacks and the variation in the nature of coevolution, infectious disease, specificity in host–parasite interactions, our work emphasizes the underesti- fluctuating selection, specificity mated potential for host–parasite coevolution to generate fluctuating selection. Author for correspondence: 1. Introduction Alex Best Understanding the coevolution of hosts and parasites is important given the cen- e-mail: [email protected] tral role that infectious disease plays in human health, agriculture and natural systems. Theory predicts that the coevolution of hosts and their parasites may lead to a number of distinct outcomes, including a coevolutionary stable strategy (co-ESS) for both host and parasite [1,2]; static within-population dimorphism or polymorphism [2–5]; escalation (known as arms race dynamics, ARD) [6] and fluctuating selection dynamics (FSD) [7–11]. ARD cannot continue indefinitely because of associated fitness costs or physiological constraints (e.g. [12]), which means that, in the long term, coevolution will eventually lead to either a stable evolutionary equilibrium (including polymorphisms) or fluctuating selection. Fluctuating selection is therefore of particular importance because it is the only dynamic coevolutionary outcome that can be maintained indefinitely in a constant environment. The presence of a constantly changing antagonist is thought to play a key role in the maintenance of diversity [13] and also has implications for selection for sex and recombination [14–16], and local adaptation [17–19]. Understanding Electronic supplementary material is available the processes and mechanisms that promote FSD therefore has significant online at https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9. implications for our understanding of a wide range of biological phenomena. figshare.c.3904924. & 2017 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. Downloaded from http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/ on March 5, 2018 Theoretical work has primarily focused on how different non-specific) to ‘range’ (variation from highly specific to gener- 2 forms of genetic specificity between hosts and parasites lead alist, and therefore phenotypically equivalent to gene-for-gene rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org to fluctuating selection [7–11,19–21]. Highly specific ‘match- models but with continuous phenotypic variation), and ‘match- ing-allele’ interactions, where parasites must ‘match’ the host ing’ (highly specific, where all parasite strains are specialists on at each loci to infect, commonly generate coevolutionary respective host strains, and therefore phenotypically equivalent ‘cycles’ (i.e. FSD) as selection favours parasite genotypes to matching-allele models but again with continuous phenoty- capable of infecting common host genotypes, thereby generat- pic variation). Furthermore, we explicitly consider ing negative frequency-dependent selection [20–22]. the ecological and epidemiological settings that promote Effectively, hosts constantly evolve to ‘escape’ parasites that cycles. As such, we determine what factors and which types can infect them while parasites play ‘catch-up’. By contrast, of host–parasite interactions promote fluctuating selection. ‘gene-for-gene’ interactions (where there is variation in speci- ficity such that hosts and parasites vary from specialists to Proc. R. Soc. B generalists) often produce ARD, where directional selection favours increasing resistance and infectivity ranges, although 2. Model and methods there can be a transition to FSD if there are costs to infection We base our mathematical analysis within the eco-evolutionary and defence [7–11]. While some empirical evidence appears invasion framework known as adaptive dynamics [30–33] 284 consistent with the notion that different genetic interactions and combine this with explicit evolutionary simulations that : 20171615 are associated with ARD or FSD [23–25], recent experimental relax some of the restrictive assumptions of the mathematical work has shown that changing environmental conditions can approach (see the electronic supplementary material, §A1 for cause host–parasite interactions to switch between ARD and a fuller description of the analytical methods and the electronic FSD [26–28], suggesting either that the environment determines supplementary material, §B for a description of the numerical specificity or that the same genetic specificity has different simulations). We assume that resident strains of host and para- consequences depending on the environment. site have reached a population dynamic equilibrium of a One way to investigate the importance of genetic specificity susceptible–infected–susceptible model [5,34]: alongside ecological feedbacks in determining FSD is to dS directly compare coevolutionary dynamics with no specificity ¼ða À qðS þ IÞÞðS þ fIÞbS À bSI þ gI ð2:1Þ with those generated under various different forms of speci- dt ficity. This can be achieved using eco-evolutionary models, and which allow for varying population sizes owing to changes dI in host defence and parasite infectivity. These models are ¼ bSI ðb þ a þ gÞI: ð2:2Þ dt increasingly used to examine the role of environmental and ecological feedbacks on the coevolution of hosts and parasites Susceptible hosts reproduce at a rate a, with the rate [1,2,4,5,29] and have largely considered the processes that for infected hosts reduced by f [ ½0, 1, with reproduction determine co-ESS levels of host defence and parasite infectiv- limited by competition by