Testing the "Red King": The maintenance of functional diversity of hosts and parasites

所有生物都受到各种传染性生物的挑战，包括细菌、病毒、真菌和各种蠕虫。作为回应，它们已经形成了广泛的抵抗机制，从更厚的肠壁到复杂的免疫系统。当我们观察宿主种群时，我们被个体之间对各种疾病的相对抵抗力的差异所震惊。这种多样性不仅存在于自然种群中，也存在于人类和农场种群中。此外，不同菌株的宿主和各种寄生虫的传染性也有相当大的差异。所有这些变异都很重要，因为它允许对治疗和环境变化做出快速的反应。它还使种群具有复原力，并影响疾病通过宿主种群传播的速度。然而，我们并不知道是什么过程首先产生和维持了多样性。这一建议将理论与实验室实验结合起来，利用微生物及其疾病，观察天然细菌及其噬菌体，试图了解多样性背后的过程。如果我们能够了解这些过程，我们将能够控制种群中的疾病，并有可能更好地保护受到疾病威胁的物种。

All organisms are challenged by a wide range of infectious organisms including bacteria, viruses, fungi and various worms. In response they have developed a wide range of resistance mechanisms ranging from thicker gut walls through to complex immune systems. When we look at populations of hosts we are struck by the differences between individuals in their relative resistance to their various diseases. This diversity is found in natural populations but also characteristic of human and farm populations. Furthermore there is considerable variation in the infectivity of different strains of the hosts various parasites. All of this variation is important because it allows rapid evolution in response to treatment and environmental change. It also allows populations to be resilient and affects the rate of transmission of a disease through a host population. However we do not know what processes generate and maintain the diversity in the first place. This proposal combines theory with experiments in the laboratory using microbes and their diseases and looks at a natural bacteria and its phage in order to try to understand what processes underlie the diversity. If we can understand these processes we will be able to manage disease in populations and potentially better protect species that are under threat of disease.