Advances in Evolutionary Ecology of Host–Parasite Interactions
A special issue of Biology (ISSN 2079-7737). This special issue belongs to the section "Infection Biology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 1381
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Parasitism has evolved independently in various taxa and become one of the most common lifestyles. Parasitic organisms are abundant and phylogenetically diverse; their interactions with hosts can have big evolutionary consequences, including emerging infectious disease in multiple species.
Parasites often live in ephemeral environments, because the host individuals they have infected may have changing health statuses and will die at some point. Therefore, the interaction between parasites and their hosts may vary during the evolutionary process; for example, a parasite may encounter and infect a novel host species and establish novel interactions.
Meanwhile, host range and geographical distribution vary greatly among parasites. Some parasites may keep the ability to infect a large variety of host species in different geographical locations, while others are restricted to a small set of host species. Understanding what makes parasites stick to a certain set of hosts or switch to others is important for basic research on disease evolution and ecological health.
We hereby call for studies in evolutionary ecology on host–parasite interactions, including (but not limited to) the host specificity of parasites, the host switching and host range expansion of parasites, the immune responses of hosts to endo- and etco-parasites, the phylogeography of parasites in certain or a set of hosts, the mechanisms in the establishment of novel host–parasite interactions, etc.
Dr. Xi Huang
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- evolutionary ecology
- infectious disease
- host–parasite interactions
- host switching
- host specificity
- immune response
- phylogeography
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