Evolution and Ecology of Infectious Diseases

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The recent pandemic reminds us that diseases and parasites can do great harm to their hosts and thereby affect human health, food security and biodiversity. This course provides students with an understanding of the ecological and evolutionary principles that underly disease symptoms, emergence, and outbreak. Through a series of lectures, supplemented with practicals, we will explore how natural selection acts on hosts and their pathogens, what factors facilitate disease outbreaks, and how we might prevent pathogens from escaping our control. Using examples in human medicine, animals, and plants we will explore: 1) why we get sick 2) how diseases emerge 3) super spreaders, individuals who generate many infections 4) How global warming can alter the interaction between diseases and their hosts 5) the evolution of antibiotic resistance and the evolution virulence 6) evolution proofing our drugs 7) many other concepts in evolutionary medicine, ecology, and evolution.