Hybridization in Parasites: Consequences for Adaptive Evolution, Pathogenesis, and Public Health in a Changing World

Hybridization of parasites is an emerging public health concern at the interface of infectious disease biology and evolution. Increasing economic development, human migration, global trade, and climate change are all shifting the geographic distribution of existing human, livestock, companion animal, and wildlife parasites [1–9]. As a result, human populations encounter new infections more frequently, and coinfection by multiple parasites from different lineages or species within individual hosts occurs. Coinfection may have a large impact on the hosts and parasites involved, often as a result of synergistic or antagonistic interactions between parasites [10]. Indeed, mixed-species coinfections have been found to influence parasite establishment, growth, maturation, reproductive success, and/or drug efficacy [11–13]. However, coinfections can allow for heterospecific (between-species or between-lineage) mate pairings, resulting in parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction in which eggs occur without fertilization), introgression (the introduction of single genes or chromosomal regions from one species into that of another through repeated backcrossing), and whole-genome admixture through hybridization [14].