Hanna Susi

and 2 more

The trade-off between within-host infection load and transmission to new hosts is predicted to constrain pathogen evolution, and to maintain polymorphism in pathogen populations. The life-history stages and their correlations that underpin infection development may change under coinfection with other parasites as they compete for the same limited host resources. Cross-kingdom interactions are common among pathogens in both natural and cultivated systems yet their impact on disease ecology and evolution are rarely studied. Host plant Plantago lanceolata is naturally infected by both Phompopsis subordinaria, a seed killing fungus, as well as Plantago lanceolata latent virus (PlLV) in the Ă…land Islands, SW Finland. We performed an inoculation assay to test whether coinfection with PlLV affects performance of two P. subordinaria strains, and the correlation between within-host infection load and transmission potential. The strains differed in the measured life-history traits and their correlations. Moreover, we found that under virus coinfection, within-host infection load of P. subordinaria was lower but transmission potential was higher compared to strains under single infection. The negative correlation between within-host infection load and transmission potential detected under single infection became positive under coinfection with PlLV. In wild populations, within-host infection load was positively associated with within-population disease prevalence. Jointly, our results suggest that the trade-off between within-host infection load and transmission may be strain specific, and that the pathogen life-history that underpin epidemics may change depending on the diversity of infection, generating variation in disease dynamics.