A key requirement for several theories involving the evolution of sex and sexual selection is a specificity between host and parasite genotypes, i.e. the resistance of particular host genotypes to particular parasite genotypes and the infectivity of particular parasite genotypes for particular host genotypes. Determining the scope and nature of any such specificity is also of applied relevance,...

Detectable polymorphism of host resistance and parasite host range is a poor guide to the specificity of a host-parasite interaction. I analyse a simple haploid model to support this claim. The model assumes that the true specificity is 'matching-allele', in which each of n host alleles causes resistance to only one of n different parasite alleles. The detectable polymorphism in samples from a ...

I show that detectable polymorphism of host resistance and parasite host-range is a poor guide to the specificity of a host-parasite interaction. I analyze a simple haploid model to support this claim. The model assumes that the true specificity is " matching-allele " in which each of n host alleles causes resistance to only one of n different parasite alleles. The detectable polymorphism in sa...

A negative interspecific correlation between the degree of habitat specialization and the size of a species’ geographic range has been documented for several free living groups of organisms, providing support for the niche breadth hypothesis. In contrast, practically nothing is known about the geographic range sizes of parasitic organisms and their determinants. In the context of the niche brea...

The introduction of biological control agents to new environments requires host specificity tests to estimate potential non-target impacts of a prospective agent. Currently, the approach is conservative, and is based on physiological host ranges determined under captive rearing conditions, without consideration for ecological factors that may influence realized host range. We use historical dat...

A growing body of research is focused on the extinction parasite species in response to host endangerment and declines. Beyond loss richness, can impact apparent specificity, as measured by richness or phylogenetic distances among hosts. Such impacts distribution parasites across phylogeny have knock-on effects that may reshape adaptation both hosts parasites, ultimately shifting evolutionary l...

The distribution and ecological impacts of plant-associated fungi is determined in large part by their degree of specificity for particular host species or environmental conditions. Here we evaluate the host and habitat preferences among the Aphyllophorales, a guild of wood-decay basidiomycete fungi usually considered to be host generalists. We determined the patterns of host association in thr...