Divergent Macroparasite Infections in Parapatric Swiss Lake-Stream Pairs of Threespine Stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus).

ABSTRACT: Spatial heterogeneity in diversity and intensity of parasitism is a typical feature of most host-parasite interactions, but understanding of the evolutionary implications of such variation is limited. One possible outcome of infection heterogeneities is parasite-mediated divergent selection between host populations, ecotypes or species which may facilitate the process of ecological speciation. However, very few studies have described infections in population-pairs along the speciation continuum from low to moderate or high degree of genetic differentiation that would address the possibility of parasite-mediated divergent selection in the early stages of the speciation process. Here we provide an example of divergent parasitism in freshwater fish ecotypes by examining macroparasite infectio

SUBMITTER: Karvonen A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4472517 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature