Journal
Nature Communications
Volume 6, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6975
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Funding
- SULSA Leaders award
- strategic award from Wellcome Trust [095831]
- Academy of Finland [250444, 136393, 133499]
- European Research Council (Independent Starting Grant PATHEVOL) [281517]
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Co-infections by multiple pathogen strains are common in the wild. Theory predicts co-infections to have major consequences for both within- and between-host disease dynamics, but data are currently scarce. Here, using common garden populations of Plantago lanceolata infected by two strains of the pathogen Podosphaera plantaginis, either singly or under co-infection, we find the highest disease prevalence in co-infected treatments both at the host genotype and population levels. A spore-trapping experiment demonstrates that co-infected hosts shed more transmission propagules than singly infected hosts, thereby explaining the observed change in epidemiological dynamics. Our experimental findings are confirmed in natural pathogen populations-more devastating epidemics were measured in populations with higher levels of co-infection. Jointly, our results confirm the predictions made by theoretical and experimental studies for the potential of co-infection to alter disease dynamics across a large host-pathogen metapopulation.
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