INTRO:
Viruses and their hosts influence each other’s evolution. As selection acts on viruses to increase their ability to infect hosts, selection is acting on hosts to decrease their susceptibility to viruses, and the next generation of viruses is less effective at infecting hosts. But the viruses continue to evolve, as do the hosts–they coevolve and often demonstrate this pattern:
This is called the Red Queen Effect, after the Red Queen from Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.
Continue reading “Does it even matter that you’re not a monkey? Host Species vs Immunocompetence”