ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2023
Death is overrated: the potential role of detection in driving virulence evolution.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Heterogeneity in and correlation between host transmissibility and susceptibility can greatly impact epidemic dynamics.Journal of theoretical biology · 2025Pooled it
- Avoidance of infection.Current biology : CB · 2025Article
- Heterogeneity in and correlation between host transmissibility and susceptibility can greatly impact epidemic dynamics.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Pathogen priming alters host transmission potential and predictors of transmissibility in a wild songbird species.mSphere · 2025Article
- Pathogen priming alters host transmission potential and predictors of transmissibility in a wild songbird species.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Exceptions to the rule: When does resistance evolution not undermine antibiotic therapy in human bacterial infections?Evolution letters · 2024Article
- The impact of sterility-mortality tolerance and recovery-transmission trade-offs on host-parasite coevolution.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Diagnostic testing and the evolution of detection avoidance by pathogens.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2024Article
- Death is overrated: the potential role of detection in driving virulence evolution.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A common assumption in the evolution of virulence theory literature is that pathogens transmit better when they exploit their host more heavily, but by doing so, they impose a greater risk of killing their host, thus truncating infectious periods and reducing their own opportunities for transmission. Here, I derive an equation for the magnitude of this cost in terms of the infection fatality rate, and in doing so, I show that there are many cases where mortality costs are too small to plausibly constrain increases in host exploitation by pathogens. I propose that pathogen evolution may often be constrained by detection costs, whereby hosts alter their behaviour when infection is detectable, and thus reduce pathogen opportunities for onward transmission. I then derive an inequality to illustrate when mortality costs or detection costs impose stronger constraints on pathogen evolution, and I use empirical data from the literature to demonstrate that detection costs are frequently large in both human and animal populations. Finally, I give examples of how evolutionary predictions can change depending on whether costs of host exploitation are borne out through mortality or detection.
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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.