ArticleEvolution letters2023
Vertical transmission does not always lead to benign pathogen-host associations.
Article in Evolution letters, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Heritable viral symbionts in the familyApplied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Virulence and Vertically Transmitted Pathogens: The Role of Costs Paid by Co-Evolving Hosts in a Self-Regulating Population.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Vertical and horizontal transmission of plant viruses: two extremes of a continuum?Npj viruses · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Understanding the capacity of pathogens to cause severe disease is of fundamental importance to human health and the preservation of biodiversity. Many of those pathogens are not only transmitted horizontally between unrelated hosts but also vertically between parents and their progeny. It is widely accepted that vertical transmission leads to the evolution of less virulent pathogens, but this idea stems from research that neglects the evolutionary response of hosts. Here, we use a game-theory model of coevolution between pathogen and host to show that vertical transmission does not always lead to more benign pathogens. We highlight scenarios in which vertical transmission results in pathogens exhibiting more virulence. However, we also predict that more benign outcomes are still possible (a) when generating new horizontal infections inflicts too much damage on hosts, (b) when clearing an infection is too costly for the host, and (c) when vertical transmission is promoted by a greater growth rate of the host population. Though our work offers a new perspective on the role of vertical transmission in pathogen-host systems, it does agree with previous experimental work.
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