Parasite Biology and Host Interactions

Parasites are not simply agents of disease but active participants in ecosystems, shaping population sizes, altering food webs, and influencing which species persist in a community. Ecologists studying host-parasite interactions work to understand how these relationships ripple outward — affecting biodiversity, mediating competition between native and invasive species, and shifting disease risk as climate and land use change disrupt established host communities. A central open question is how global change reorganizes the match between parasites and their hosts, particularly in aquatic environments where temperature shifts and pollution can simultaneously weaken host defenses and expand parasite ranges. Researchers are also using molecular phylogenetics to reconstruct the evolutionary histories of parasitic lineages, which helps clarify how novel host-parasite pairings form when species ranges collide.

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Keywords

ParasitesEcosystemHost-Parasite InteractionsBiodiversityInvasive SpeciesDisease Risk