Arms race of host and parasite: Coevolutionary dynamics and ecological correlates

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Mutual adaptation of host and parasite often makes them engaged in the evolutionary arms race of interacting traits. I here introduce three theoretical models of coupled demographic and genetic dynamics for arms races, and discuss breakthroughs, made by the models, in the understanding of the conditions for different evolutionary outcomes (e.g. the endless coevolutionary cycles, the unilateral disarmament by host, the emergence of costly superrace in parasite) and in the pest/disease managements (e.g. multiline control of rice blast disease in Japan). The models I discuss are for (1) the coevolution of multiple plant, resistance genes and the corresponding virulence genes in their pathogens, (2) the coevolution of the extents to which the host invests to resistance mechanisms against internal parasitoid and the parasitoid does to countermeasures, (3)the correlated geographical dine of coevolving traits, the pericarp thickness of camellia and the rostrum length of obligate seed predator weevil in which the boring success depends on the difference in rostrum length and pericarp thickness.