Adaptive phenotypic plasticity in malaria parasites is not constrained by previous responses to environmental change.

ABSTRACT:

Background and objectives

Phenotypic plasticity enables organisms to maximize fitness by matching trait values to different environments. Such adaptive phenotypic plasticity is exhibited by parasites, which experience frequent environmental changes during their life cycle, between individual hosts and also in within-host conditions experienced during infections. Life history theory predicts that the evolution of adaptive phenotypic plasticity is limited by costs and constraints, but tests of these concepts are scarce.

Methodology

Here, we induce phenotypic plasticity in malaria parasites to test whether mounting a plastic response to an environmental perturbation constrains subsequent plastic responses to further environmental change. Specifically, we perturb red blood cell

SUBMITTER: Birget PLG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6805783 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature