Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Leggett HC
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5352820 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Leggett Helen C HC Cornwallis Charlie K CK Buckling Angus A West Stuart A SA
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences 20170501 1719
The harm that pathogens cause to hosts during infection, termed virulence, varies across species from negligible to a high likelihood of rapid death. Classic theory for the evolution of virulence is based on a trade-off between pathogen growth, transmission and host survival, which predicts that higher within-host growth causes increased transmission and higher virulence. However, using data from 61 human pathogens, we found the opposite correlation to the expected positive correlation between p ...[more]