MODELS OF PARASITE VIRULENCE

Several evolutionary processes influence virulence, the amount of dama ge a parasite causes to its host. For example, parasites are favored t o exploit their hosts prudently to prolong infection and avoid killing the host. Parasites also need to use some host resources to reproduce and transmit infections to new hosts. Thus parasites face a tradeoff between prudent exploitation and rapid reproduction-a life history tra deoff between longevity and fecundity. Other tradeoffs among component s of parasite fitness also influence virulence. For example, competiti on among parasite genotypes favors rapid growth to achieve greater rel ative success within the host. Rapid growth may, however, lower the to tal productivity of the local group by over exploiting the host, which is a potentially renewable food supply. This is a problem of kin sele ction and group selection. I summarize models of parasite virulence wi th the theoretical tools of life history analysis, kin selection, and epidemiology. I then apply the theory to recent empirical studies and models of virulence. These applications, to nematodes, to the extreme virulence of hospital epidemics, and to bacterial meningitis, show the power of simple life history theory to highlight interesting question s and to provide a rich array of hypotheses. These examples also show the kinds of conceptual mistakes that commonly arise when only a few c omponents of parasite fitness are analysed in isolation. The last part of the article connects standard models of parasite virulence to dive rse topics, such as the virulence of bacterial plasmids, the evolution of genomes, and the processes that influenced conflict and cooperatio n among the earliest replicators near the origin of life.