Abstract:
Parasite life history strategies within the host, especially the timing of replication and transmission, influence disease severity and spread, and the evolution of drug resistance. I investigate how subtle differences in ecology within and outside of the host can generate dramatic differences in parasite strategies. I focus on time series--especially from parasitic infections--because those data offer unique opportunities to disentangle the interplay between ecology and complex strategies. My approach is two-fold: (1) I build ecologically-detailed models to ask when and why particular strategies would be favored; (2) I test current statistical methods for inferring parasite strategies against simulated data and develop novel approaches to better characterize parasite traits from existing data. By comparing ideal (and real) strategies, my research illuminates broader patterns in life history evolution.
704 Thackeray Hall