Adaptive Dynamics of Pathogen-Host Interactions

This paper explains why the traditional approach of predicting evolutionary outcomes by maximizing the basic reproduction ratio of a disease is not always appropriate. Since pathogens tend to affect their host environment in radical ways, selection pressures usually depend on the types of pathogens and hosts that are established in an infected population. After outlining the theory of adaptive dynamics as a versatile toolbox for investigating the evolution and coevolution of pathogen–host interactions under conditions of frequencydependent selection, examples illustrate how classic methods and the new models presented here result in different predictions about the evolution of infectious diseases.