Kevin D. Lafferty
2010
<p id="p-3">Parasitism is the most popular life-style on Earth, and many vertebrates host more than one kind of parasite at a time. A common assumption is that parasite species rarely interact, because they often exploit different tissues in a host, and this use of discrete resources limits competition (<a id="xref-ref-1-1" class="xref-bibr" href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6001/187#ref-1" data-mce-href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6001/187#ref-1"><i>1</i></a>). On page<span> </span><a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1190333" data-mce-href="https://science.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1190333">243</a><span> </span>of this issue, however, Telfer<span> </span><i>et al.</i><span> </span>(<a id="xref-ref-2-1" class="xref-bibr" href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6001/187#ref-2" data-mce-href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6001/187#ref-2"><i>2</i></a>) provide a convincing case of a highly interactive parasite community in voles, and show how infection with one parasite can affect susceptibility to others. If some human parasites are equally interactive, our current, disease-by-disease approach to modeling and treating infectious diseases is inadequate (<a id="xref-ref-3-1" class="xref-bibr" href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6001/187#ref-3" data-mce-href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6001/187#ref-3"><i>3</i></a>).</p><p id="p-4">Telfer<span> </span><i>et al.</i>'s study—which involved tracking infections of four different parasites by taking blood samples from nearly 6000 wild voles (<i>Microtus agrestis</i>) over 5 years—helps highlight our growing understanding of how parasites can interact in complex ways (see the figure). What are some of the take-home messages?</p>
application/pdf
10.1126/science.1196915
en
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Interacting parasites
article