The evolution of parasite virulence under targeted culling and harvesting in wildlife and livestock.

ABSTRACT: There is a clear need to understand the effect of human intervention on the evolution of infectious disease. In particular, culling and harvesting of both wildlife and managed livestock populations are carried out in a wide range of management practices, and they have the potential to impact the evolution of a broad range of disease characteristics. Applying eco-evolutionary theory we show that once culling/harvesting becomes targeted on specific disease classes, the established result that culling selects for higher virulence is only found when sufficient infected individuals are culled. If susceptible or recovered individuals are targeted, selection for lower virulence can occur. An important implication of this result is that when culling to eradicate an infectious disease from a popula

SUBMITTER: O'Neill X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10660816 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature