ArticleThe American naturalist2014
Synchrony in malaria infections: how intensifying within-host competition can be adaptive.
Article in The American naturalist, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Malaria parasites can optimize transmission investment by sensing two within-host cues.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Phenotypic and fitness consequences of plasticity in the rhythmic replication of malaria parasites.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Testing the evolutionary drivers of malaria parasite rhythms and their consequences for host-parasite interactions.Evolutionary applications · 2024Article
- Virulence is associated with daily rhythms in the within-host replication of the malaria parasiteEvolutionary applications · 2024Article
- Decoding the Role of Melatonin Structure onBiomolecules · 2022Article
- Ecology of asynchronous asexual replication: the intraerythrocytic development cycle of Plasmodium berghei is resistant to host rhythms.Malaria journal · 2021Article
- Uncovering drivers of dose-dependence and individual variation in malaria infection outcomes.PLoS computational biology · 2020Article
- Periodic Parasites and Daily Host Rhythms.Cell host & microbe · 2020Review
- Altered life history strategies protect malaria parasites against drugs.Evolutionary applications · 2018Article
- Rethinking the extrinsic incubation period of malaria parasites.Parasites & vectors · 2018Review
- Predicting optimal transmission investment in malaria parasites.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2016Article
- Review
- Opportunities and challenges of Integral Projection Models for modelling host-parasite dynamics.The Journal of animal ecology · 2016Article
- Quantifying Transmission Investment in Malaria Parasites.PLoS computational biology · 2016Article
- Comparison of mathematical frameworks for modeling erythropoiesis in the context of malaria infection.Mathematical biosciences · 2015Article
- Evolution of plastic transmission strategies in avian malaria.PLoS pathogens · 2014Article
- War and peace: social interactions in infections.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2014Review
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3 authors.
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Abstract
Malaria parasites exhibit great diversity in the coordination of their asexual life cycle within the host, ranging from asynchronous growth to tightly synchronized cycles of invasion and emergence from red blood cells. Synchronized reproduction should come at a high cost--intensifying competition among offspring--so why would some Plasmodium species engage in such behavior and others not? We use a delayed differential equation model to show that synchronized infections can be favored when (1) there is limited interference among parasites competing for red blood cells, (2) transmission success is an accelerating function of sexual parasite abundance, (3) the target of saturating immunity is short-lived, and (4) coinfections with asynchronous parasites are rare. As a consequence, synchrony may be beneficial or costly, in line with the diverse patterns of synchronization observed in natural and lab infections. By allowing us to characterize diverse temporal dynamics, the model framework provides a basis for making predictions about disease severity and for projecting evolutionary responses to interventions.
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