Instruct: Identify the main category of Biorxiv papers based on the titles and abstracts
Query: The Evolution of Host Specialization in an Insect Pathogen Niche breadth coevolution between biotic partners underpins theories of diversity and co-existence and influences patterns of disease emergence and transmission in host-parasite systems. Despite these broad implications, we still do not fully understand how the breadth of parasites infectivity evolves, the nature of any associated costs, or the genetic basis of specialization. Here, we serially passage a granulosis virus on multiple inbred populations of its Plodia interpunctella host to explore the dynamics and outcomes of specialization. In particular, we collect time series of phenotypic and genetic data to explore the dynamics of host genotype specialization throughout the course of experimental evolution and examine two fitness components. We find that the Plodia interpunctella granulosis virus consistently evolves increases in overall specialization, but that our two fitness components evolve independently such that lines specialize in either productivity or infectivity. Furthermore, we find that specialization in our experiment is a highly polygenic trait best explained by a combination of evolutionary mechanisms including conditionally positive fitness asymmetries and mutation accumulation. These results are important for understanding the evolution of specialization in host-parasite interactions and its broader implications for co-existence, diversification, and infectious disease management.
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The categories of this paper are: plant
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The categories of this paper are: pharmacology
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The categories of this paper are: molecular
29
The categories of this paper are: education
11
The categories of this paper are: cognition
12
The categories of this paper are: behavior
26
The categories of this paper are: biochemistry
31
The categories of this paper are: paleontology
16
The categories of this paper are: microbiology
23
The categories of this paper are: immunology
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The categories of this paper are: synthetic
28
The categories of this paper are: communication
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The categories of this paper are: developmental
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The categories of this paper are: bioinformatics
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The categories of this paper are: physiology
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The categories of this paper are: biophysics