Parasite reproduction
Reproduction is sexual and occurs between parasite individuals that are
in the same host and that have a minimum genetic similarity,
qmin, measured based on the Hamming distance between
genomes. In each host species, K offspring are born, replacing
the parental population. We establish a maximum of K random
trials with reposition to find one compatible partner. The offspring is
generated by locus recombination of the parents and eachlocus has a probability μ of mutation. We set\(q_{\min\ }={0.5q}_{0}\), where \(q_{0\ }\)is the expected mean
similarity within one population in equilibrium, because it avoids the
occurrence of parasite speciation within the same host species.
Consequently, parasite speciation only happens when more than one host
species is used. For a more detailed description of the method, see the
supplemental information I.