Editorial overview: Evolutionary ecology of insect immunity

Armitage, Sophie A.O.; Milutinović, Barbar (2022) Editorial overview: Evolutionary ecology of insect immunity. Current Opinion in Insect Science, 53 . ISSN 2214-5745

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Abstract

Why are some individuals better at defending themselves against disease compared with others? Research centering on why there is immunological variation between individuals came to the fore in the mid-90s when researchers started considering immunological questions within an evolutionary ecology framework: this became known as the field of ecological immunology. Physiological and behavioural immune defences towards pathogens and parasites are not uniform ; their quantity and quality will be determined by a multitude of factors such as the host’s genotype, life-history stage, environmental conditions, nutritional status and previous evolutionary experience with the parasite. Ecological immunology tries to understand the importance of these factors in shaping disease defences and the resulting consequences of immunological heterogeneity on both host and parasite populations. This issue of Current Opinion in Insect Science aims to provide an up-to-date overview and a look to the future for nine themes on the evolutionary ecology of insect immunity, which we have identified as some of the key current or emerging topics in the field.

Item Type:

Article

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Evolutionary ecology; ecological immunology; insect immunity

Subjects:

NATURAL SCIENCES > Biology > Ecology
NATURAL SCIENCES > Biology > Genetics, Evolution and Phylogenetics

Divisions:

Division of Molecular Biology

Projects: