随着整合生物学思想的发展,生态学与免疫学的相互渗透与交叉,产生了生态免疫学这一崭新的学科,自从其诞生虽然只有短短的十几年时间,但发展迅速。生态免疫学主要从免疫代价的视角来解释生活史权衡、性选择和种群动态变化等生态学问题。动物的免疫功能对其抵抗疾病和最终的生存起至关重要的作用,影响动物免疫的因素具有多样性和复杂性的特点,而研究动物免疫功能变化的原因和结果一直是生态免疫学研究的重要内容。免疫防御是否具有能量或资源代价,这种代价是否昂贵是生态免疫学需要回答的基本问题之一,大量的实验已表明免疫防御的代价是昂贵的。由于能量或资源不是无限的,有限的能量或资源必须在多种经常相互竞争的生理功能间进行分配,这导致了免疫功能与动物的生长、繁殖等生活史组分之间的权衡,很多的研究表明增加一个过程的投资会降低对另一过程的投资。免疫同样在性选择特征进化以及维持雌性偏爱性修饰的雄性中发挥至关重要的作用,免疫功能障碍假说认为睾丸激素负责第二性征的产生并同时具有免疫抑制作用,表达性征的代价是降低了免疫功能,这使得宿主对病原体或寄生物攻击的易感性增加,因此只有高质量的雄性个体才能充分表达性征同时又不遭受大量寄生负荷。综述了生态免疫学的概念、研究内容以及未来研究需要关注的领域。;Ecology is the study of the distribution and abundance of organisms and their interactions with their environment, including parasites and pathogens. Immunology is the study of physiological functioning of the immune system in states of health and disease. The two disciplines has unified and led to the new discipline of ecological immunology, or ecoimmunology in integrative perspectives. Ecoimmunology is a rapidly expanding research field. Its prime concern is to understand the ecological questions such as life-history trade-offs, sexual selection, population dynamics and so on in view of the cost of immunity. The immune system, which can protect animals from infection and attack of pathogens in the environment, plays an important role in determining organisms' survival and their fitness. The focus of ecoimmunology has been to examine the causes and consequences of variation in immune function in the context of evolution and of ecology, specifically why and how biotic and abiotic factors contribute to variation in immunity in free-living organisms. Whether immune defense is costly in terms of energy or resources is a basic scientific question in ecoimmunology. Many researchers have demonstrated that immune defense is costly. Resources is not limitless, hence organisms must allocate limited resources among competing, costly physiological functions. Trade-offs occur between immunity and reproduction or growth, in which investing in one particular process, such as reproduction, limits the resources available to other processes, such as somatic growth or fighting a parasitic infection. Parasites were of fundamental importance in the evolution of sexually selected characters and in the maintenance of female preferences for ornamented males. The immunocompetence handicap hypothesis states that testosterone is responsible for the production of male secondary sexual traits and is simultaneously immunosuppressive, the cost of being able to express sexual traits is decreased immune function. Immunosuppression should result in greater vulnerability to pathogen or parasite attack; therefore, only high-quality males could afford to display sexual characteristics fully without suffering large parasite loads. In this paper we review the development, the focuses and the prospects of ecoimmunology.