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1. Host manipulation dynamics under the host manipulation hypothesis

   https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6389509  

   Burginski_Rosa, João Lucas; Trivellone, Valeria; Borges_Lino_Araujo, Sabrina (March 2026, SSRN)

   Emerging infectious diseases occur when a pathogen colonizes a novel or previously unexposed host, a process that requires both biological capacity and ecological opportunity. Host-parasite interactions can be complex, and many pathogens are able to ”manipulate” host phenotypes and behaviors (a phenomenon known as host manipulation) in ways that enhance their transmission. In tripartite associations, such as vector-borne diseases, interactions among pathogens, vectors, and multiple hosts add an additional layer of complexity. In this work, we developed a computational model of a tripartite vector-plant-pathogen system to evaluate host colonization dynamics under scenarios of host manipulation. In vector-borne plant pathogen systems, insect vectors acquire and transmit pathogens while feeding on plant hosts. Vectors and plants exert distinctive selective pressures on the pathogen population, which can multiply, mutate, and thus diversify over time. Using an individual-based model, we performed simulations comparing a null model, where there is no preferential interaction between vectors and plants, with a model in which the pathogen's presence alters the interaction preference (host manipulation scenario). In the host manipulation scenario, the pathogen exhibited a faster colonization rate despite accumulating lower capacity (phenotypic diversity) prior to the colonization event. The frequency of host colonization under moderate misfit was also higher in this scenario, indicating that a change in interaction preference can facilitate the colonization of highly divergent hosts. Altogether, these results show that increased opportunity due to host manipulation can compensate for reduced accumulation of capacity, ultimately promoting host range expansion and increasing risk of emerging infectious diseases. 

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2. Environmental Factors and Host Microbiomes Shape Host–Pathogen Dynamics

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pt.2020.04.010  

   Bernardo-Cravo, Adriana P.; Schmeller, Dirk S.; Chatzinotas, Antonis; Vredenburg, Vance T.; Loyau, Adeline (July 2020, Trends in Parasitology)
3. The evolution of parasite host range in heterogeneous host populations

   https://doi.org/10.1111/jeb.13608  

   Gibson, Amanda K.; Baffoe‐Bonnie, Helena; Penley, McKenna J.; Lin, Julie; Owens, Raythe; Khalid, Arooj; Morran, Levi T. (June 2020, Journal of Evolutionary Biology)

   null (Ed.)
4. Host Congestion Control

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3603269.3604878  

   Agarwal, Saksham; Krishnamurthy, Arvind; Agarwal, Rachit (September 2023, SIGCOMM)
5. Host species differences in the thermal mismatch of host–parasitoid interactions

   https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.245702  

   Malinski, Katherine H.; Sorenson, Clyde E.; Moore, M. Elizabeth; Willett, Christopher S.; Kingsolver, Joel G. (June 2023, Journal of Experimental Biology)

   ABSTRACT Extreme high temperatures associated with climate change can affect species directly, and indirectly through temperature-mediated species interactions. In most host–parasitoid systems, parasitization inevitably kills the host, but differences in heat tolerance between host and parasitoid, and between different hosts, may alter their interactions. Here, we explored the effects of extreme high temperatures on the ecological outcomes – including, in some rare cases, escape from the developmental disruption of parasitism – of the parasitoid wasp, Cotesia congregata, and two co-occurring congeneric larval hosts, Manduca sexta and M. quinquemaculata. Both host species had higher thermal tolerance than C. congregata, resulting in a thermal mismatch characterized by parasitoid (but not host) mortality under extreme high temperatures. Despite parasitoid death at high temperatures, hosts typically remain developmentally disrupted from parasitism. However, high temperatures resulted in a partial developmental recovery from parasitism (reaching the wandering stage at the end of host larval development) in some host individuals, with a significantly higher frequency of this partial developmental recovery in M. quinquemaculata than in M. sexta. Hosts species also differed in their growth and development in the absence of parasitoids, with M. quinquemaculata developing faster and larger at high temperatures relative to M. sexta. Our results demonstrate that co-occurring congeneric species, despite shared environments and phylogenetic histories, can vary in their responses to temperature, parasitism and their interaction, resulting in altered ecological outcomes. 

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