ArticlePLoS pathogens2013
Evolution of virulence in emerging epidemics.
Article in PLoS pathogens, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 83 papers.
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Who cites it
83 citing papers in PubMed.
- Revisiting the life cycle of temperate phages.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Ecology and evolutionary dynamics of the A-strain maize streak virus and the decade-long strategies targeting streak-resistant maize.Virus research · 2026Review
- The adaptive plasticity of temperate phageVirus evolution · 2026Article
- Future disease burden due to the rise of emerging infectious disease secondary to climate change may be being under-estimated.Virulence · 2025Article
- Zika Virus: A Tale of Two Lineages.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Biological characterization and genomic analysis of the newly discovered mycobacteriophage WST1.BMC microbiology · 2025Article
- Eco-evolutionary dynamics of temperate phages in periodic environments.Virus evolution · 2025Article
- "French Phage Network" annual conference-eighth meeting report.microLife · 2025Article
- Multispecies interactions and the community context of the evolution of virulence.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Warming alters life-history traits and competition in a phage community.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- The value of information gathering in phage-bacteria warfare.PNAS nexus · 2024Article
- Diagnostic testing and the evolution of detection avoidance by pathogens.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2024Article
- Evolution of virulence in emerging epidemics: from theory to experimental evolution and back.Virus evolution · 2024Article
- Slow growing bacteria survive bacteriophage in isolation.ISME communications · 2023Article
- Predicting the virulence of future emerging zoonotic viruses.PLoS biology · 2023Article
- Death is overrated: the potential role of detection in driving virulence evolution.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Limited host availability disrupts the genetic correlation between virulence and transmission.Evolution letters · 2023Article
- Article
- Emergent Risk Group-4 (RG-4) Filoviruses: A paradox in progress.Bioinformation · 2023Article
- Evolution of class-structured populations in periodic environments.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2022Article
23 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Theory predicts that selection for pathogen virulence and horizontal transmission is highest at the onset of an epidemic but decreases thereafter, as the epidemic depletes the pool of susceptible hosts. We tested this prediction by tracking the competition between the latent bacteriophage λ and its virulent mutant λcI857 throughout experimental epidemics taking place in continuous cultures of Escherichia coli. As expected, the virulent λcI857 is strongly favored in the early stage of the epidemic, but loses competition with the latent virus as prevalence increases. We show that the observed transient selection for virulence and horizontal transmission can be fully explained within the framework of evolutionary epidemiology theory. This experimental validation of our predictions is a key step towards a predictive theory for the evolution of virulence in emerging infectious diseases.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.