Short-term evolution of malaria in wild host populations

To understand and make predictions from the warfare between hosts and pathogen we must know the fundamental basis of evolution in such systems, i.e. how much standing genetic variation occurs in pathogen population that evolution can act upon, how often new variation occurs, how fast it spreads and how stable this variation is across time and space.

We will use newly developed molecular methods developed in the field of haemosporidian parasite research to study genetic variation of the pathogen across 1000 genes, both within and between infections in a long-term study population of Blue Tits.

Within this population 70-80% of all individuals are infected with a malaria related blood parasite and every year blood have been collected of the breeding pairs within this population, dating back to 1997.

This will allow us to to create a unique project that follows the genetic population structures at the genomic level of the pathogen dating back more than 20-years.

The goal of the proposal is; 1) to understand how genomic variability is shaping the pathogen populations across time and space 2) Investigate spatial structuring of pathogen haplotypes to identify local selection regimes 3) to estimate the parasites haplotype turnover rate within local populations as well as within individual hosts.

By achieving this we will have laid the foundation for a unique natural host-parasite system that will allow for future studies on local selection regimes and host-parasite interactions.