Parasite Biology and Host Interactions

Parasites make up a substantial fraction of Earth's biodiversity and are embedded in nearly every ecological relationship, yet for most of the twentieth century they were treated as peripheral curiosities rather than central players in ecosystem function. Research at the intersection of parasitology and community ecology has since shown that parasites regulate host population sizes, mediate competition between species, and can even stabilize food webs — effects that become especially visible when invasive species arrive in new environments carrying pathogens their hosts have never encountered. As global change alters temperature, hydrology, and species distributions, a pressing question is how these shifts will redistribute disease risk across aquatic and terrestrial communities, and whether the loss of native parasite diversity itself carries ecological costs. Molecular phylogenetics has opened new avenues for tracing how host-switching and co-evolution shape parasite communities over time, connecting fine-scale evolutionary history to broad patterns of biodiversity and outbreak risk.

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Keywords

ParasitesEcosystemHost-Parasite InteractionsBiodiversityInvasive SpeciesDisease Risk