Parasitism and the Maintenance of Genetic Variation

在基因多样化的种群中，寄生虫可能优先攻击最常见的基因类型。因此，植物和动物的杂交受精可能会产生具有稀有基因型的后代，这被称为红皇后假说。这个项目的目的是测试红皇后假说的一个关键预测，即在最近的过去很常见的宿主克隆被寄生虫优先攻击，因此它们在种群中的比例已经减少。本文将研究淡水蜗牛自然克隆种群的长期动态，克隆动态将被研究，克隆动态将与宿主克隆特异性感染率相关。这些结果对于了解害虫和病原体的易感性和抗性，以及这些寄生虫如何在宿主种群中引起遗传变化具有重要意义。

9629849 Lively In a genetically diverse population, parasites may preferentially attack the most common genetic type. Thus, cross fertilization in plants and animals may have the benefit of producing offspring with rare genotypes, which is called the Red Queen hypothesis. The objective of this project is to test a critical prediction of the Red Queen hypothesis, that host clones that were common in the recent past are preferentially attacked by parasites, and hence their proportion in the population has been reduced. The long-term dynamics of a natural, clonal population of freshwater snails will be studied, and the clone dynamics will be studied, and the clone dynamics will be related to host clone-specific rates of infection. The results will be important for understanding susceptibility and resistance to pests and pathogens, and how such parasites cause genetic changes in the host population.