Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 278, Issue 1702, Pages 35-41Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2010.0960
Keywords
disease; life-history evolution; maturation reaction norm; pathogen; perch; size at maturation
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Funding
- Research Council of Norway
- Natural Environment Research Council of the UK
- Natural Environment Research Council [ceh010022] Funding Source: researchfish
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Anthropogenic factors, including climate warming, are increasing the incidence and prevalence of infectious diseases worldwide. Infectious diseases caused by pathogenic parasites can have severe impacts on host survival, thereby altering the selection regime and inducing evolutionary responses in their hosts. Knowledge about such evolutionary consequences in natural populations is critical to mitigate potential ecological and economic effects. However, studies on pathogen-induced trait changes are scarce and the pace of evolutionary change is largely unknown, particularly in vertebrates. Here, we use a time series from long-term monitoring of perch to estimate temporal trends in the maturation schedule before and after a severe pathogen outbreak. We show that the disease induced a phenotypic change from a previously increasing to a decreasing size at maturation, the most important life-history transition in animals. Evolutionary rates imposed by the pathogen were high and comparable to those reported for populations exposed to intense human harvesting. Pathogens thus represent highly potent drivers of adaptive phenotypic evolution in vertebrates.
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