ReviewParasitology2016
The adaptive evolution of virulence: a review of theoretical predictions and empirical tests.
Review in Parasitology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 169 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
169 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Excess mortality of infected ectotherms induced by warming depends on pathogen kingdom and evolutionary history.PLoS biology · 2024Pooled it
- Manipulation of host response and trajectory of parasite survival: A damage-response framework perspective.Virulence · 2026Review
- From infection to cholangiocarcinoma: Why opisthorchiids break these rules.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026Review
- Coinfections Dampen the Effects of Temperature on Host-Parasite Interactions.Ecology letters · 2026Article
- Delayed Pathogenicity inMicroorganisms · 2026Article
- Retroviral Infections Affect Survival and Clutch Size of Female Wild Turkeys.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Healthcare Development, Relaxed Natural Selection, and COVID-19 Infection Rates: An Evolutionary Population-Level Analysis.Health science reports · 2026Article
- Experimental evolution of Plasmodium yoelii in single and helminth-coinfected mice.Malaria journal · 2025Article
- Attenuation of HIV severity by slightly deleterious mutations can explain the long-term trajectory of virulence evolution.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Virulence evolution of a salmonid virus following a host jump.PLoS pathogens · 2025Article
- Superspreading and the evolution of virulence.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Transgenerational pathogen effects: Maternal pathogen exposure reduces offspring fitness.Ecology · 2025Article
- BFD2 mediates inflammation, apoptosis, and pre-anxiety-like behaviors induced by acute Toxoplasma gondii infection.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- Virulence and Vertically Transmitted Pathogens: The Role of Costs Paid by Co-Evolving Hosts in a Self-Regulating Population.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Landscape structure as a driver of eco-evolution in host-parasite systems.Evolution letters · 2025Article
- Complex interactions in the life cycle of a simple parasite shape the evolution of virulence.PLoS pathogens · 2025Article
- Deadly Decomposers: Distinguishing Life History Strategies on the Parasitism-Saprotrophy Spectrum.Ecology letters · 2025Review
- Prevalence, geographic distribution, and transmission pathway of Camponotus yamaokai virus.Archives of virology · 2025Article
- Dissecting transmission to understand parasite evolution.PLoS pathogens · 2025Review
- Warming During Different Life Stages has Distinct Impacts on Host Resistance Ecology and Evolution.Ecology letters · 2025Article
109 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Why is it that some parasites cause high levels of host damage (i.e. virulence) whereas others are relatively benign? There are now numerous reviews of virulence evolution in the literature but it is nevertheless still difficult to find a comprehensive treatment of the theory and data on the subject that is easily accessible to non-specialists. Here we attempt to do so by distilling the vast theoretical literature on the topic into a set of relatively few robust predictions. We then provide a comprehensive assessment of the available empirical literature that tests these predictions. Our results show that there have been some notable successes in integrating theory and data but also that theory and empiricism in this field do not 'speak' to each other very well. We offer a few suggestions for how the connection between the two might be improved.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.