Variation in resistance to multiple pathogen species: anther smuts of Silene uniflora

Ecology and Evolution

Erin Chung³  Elsa Petit³  Janis Antonovics¹  Amy B. Pedersen² 

[1] Department of Biology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia;Centre of Immunity, Infection and Evolution, Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK;Department of Biology, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts

关键词: Co‐infection;    general resistance;    host specificity;    Microbotryum;    multi‐parasitized hosts;   

DOI  :  10.1002/ece3.346

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

Abstract

The occurrence of multiple pathogen species on a shared host species is unexpected when they exploit the same micro-niche within the host individual. One explanation for such observations is the presence of pathogen-specific resistances segregating within the host population into sites that are differentially occupied by the competing pathogens. This study used experimental inoculations to test whether specific resistances may contribute to the maintenance of two species of anther-smut fungi, Microbotryum silenes-inflatae and Microbotryum lagerheimii, in natural populations of Silene uniflora in England and Wales. Overall, resistance to the two pathogens was strongly positively correlated among host populations and to a lesser degree among host families within populations. A few instances of specific resistance were also observed and confirmed by replicated inoculations. The results suggest that selection for resistance to one pathogen may protect the host from the emergence via host shifts of related pathogen species, and conversely that co-occurrence of two species of pathogens may be dependent on the presence of host genotypes susceptible to both.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© 2012 The Authors. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.