EVOLVIR - ANR project -2021-2025

Competition and facilitation between parasites as drivers of virulence evolution

  • Funding: French National Research Agency (ANR) ANR-20-CE35-0013
  • The EVOLVIR project aims to study the consequences of some particular types of interactions between parasites within the same host (competition or facilitation) on the evolution of parasite virulence. The studied interactions are on the one hand the competition between two mite species of the Tetranychus genus and on the other hand the facilitation (increase of population growth) of one Tetranychus species by a virus (TSWV) during co-infection on tomato plants. We will perform experiments to validate the evolutionary predictions that competition increases the parasite virulence whereas facilitation decreases it. We will determine the mechanisms underlying these evolutionary trends and we will study their epidemiological consequences in crops.
  • Coordinator: UMR 5554, Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution de Montpellier.
  • Partners: UMR 5554, Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution de Montpellier; UR 0407 Pathologie végétale, INRAE, Avignon; UMR 5290, Maladies Infectieuses et Vecteurs: Ecologie, Génétique, Evolution et Contrôle, Montpellier; Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Université de Lisbonne, Portugal
  • Manager for the unit: MOURY Benoit
  • Lifetime: 2021-2025, 48 months