Coevolution of macroparasites and their hosts

Empirical studies that examine coevolutionary interactions between helminth parasites and their hosts have been carried out on a number of different systems. A wealth of genetic data is available for some macroparasite species (particularly the schistosomes). Further analysis of these data, when complemented with mathematical models that examine possible interactions between parasite virulence, fecundity, and aggregation, should provide some major breakthroughs in our understanding of the coevolution of parasites and their hosts. Determining the functional form of the physiological interactions between helminth parasites and their hosts, in both mechanistic and energetic terms, will allow ecologists to continue to test and modify the phenomenological assumptions which are often required when constructing models of parasite-host systems. -from Authors