Host life history responses to parasitism

Parasites and their infections can adversely effect a host's growth, reprod uction and survival. These effects are often not immediate, but increase wi th time since infection. A general prediction from evolutionary biology is chat hosts suffering from this type of infection should preferentially allo cate resources towards reproduction, even if this is at the expense of thei r growth and survival. This review illustrates this argument with several e mpirical studies showing hosts behaving in this manner. These studies indic ate that one way for hosts to reduce the costs of parasitism is by altering their life history traits to bring forward their schedule of reproduction. (C) 2000 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.