The enemy of my enemy… the impact of a hyperparasite on a plant pathogen

Parasitism is a super-common way to make a living in nature, to the extent that many parasites infect other parasites - a phenomena we call hyperparasitism. I’ll present some laboratory and field data from a plant-pathogen-hyperparasite system to show signals of specificity in parasite-hyperparasite interactions. I’ll also show how hyperparasite prevalence varies across spatial scales in nature, and how host resistance and hyperparasite infection combine to shape disease spread. I’ll also present some data from an insect-parasitoid-symbiont system to show how male-killing hyperparasites can cause parasite extinctions under certain conditions.