Symbionts are often viewed as mere passengers which are strongly tied to the fate of their hosts. This view has hampered our general understanding of symbiont species. Indeed, almost paradoxically, one of the most pervasive characteristics that symbionts possess is the ability to switch among hosts. However, knowledge of the conditions under which host-switching occurs is limited and often group-specific. The process of host-switching needs to be more properly integrated in ecological and evolutionary theory.
Results/Conclusions
In this talk, it will be shown that there are several major factors that have been found to influence the ability and frequency of a symbiont switching hosts. In addition, that there are now available a number of methods to detect host-switches at a large scale. Several recent representative examples of different patterns of host-switching will be also shown, and classified using a newly proposed classification of host-switches. It is important to consider how the process of host-switching is related to other processes such as ecological fitting, competitive exclusion, and evolutionary diversification. Overall, symbiont host-switching needs to be integrated across multiple scales into studies and concepts of symbiont ecology, evolution, and conservation.