Simultaneous evolution of host resistance and tolerance to parasitism.

Abstract

Tolerance and resistance are two modes of defence mechanisms used by hosts when faced with parasites. Here, we assume tolerance reduces infection-induced mortality rate and resistance reduces the susceptibility of getting infected. Importantly, a negative association between these two strategies has often been found experimentally. We study the simultaneous evolution of resistance and tolerance in a host population where they are related by such a trade-off. Using evolutionary invasion theory, we examine the patterns of optimal investment in each defence strategy, under different ecological scenarios. Our focus is on predicting which of the two strategies is favoured under various epidemiological and ecological conditions. Our key findings surround the impact of recovery and sterility of infected hosts. As the rate at which infected hosts recover from the infection, that is the recovery rate increases, the investment in tolerance increases (resistance decreases) when infected hosts are sterile, but this pattern reverses when infected hosts can reproduce. We further found that a change in the parameter determining the intraspecies competition for resources leading to a reduction in birth rate, that is the crowding factor affects investments in tolerance and resistance only when infected hosts can reproduce. These results emphasize the role of fecundity in driving the evolutionary dynamics of a host. We also find that disease prevalence can increase or decrease depending on whether or not the host evolves: prevalence is highest at low recovery rates when the host does not evolve, but the feedback of a change in tolerance and resistance reverses this pattern, leading to lower prevalence at low recovery rates as host evolves.