The Stockholm Paradigm Explains the Dynamics of Darwin’s Entangled Bank, Including Emerging Infectious Disease

Authors

Salvatore J. Agosta, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityFollow

ORCID IDs

Agosta https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1874-5572

Date of this Version

12-23-2022

Document Type

Article

Citation

MANTER: Journal of Parasite Biodiversity (December 23, 2022) number 27

doi: 10.32873/unl.dc.manter27

Comments

Copyright © 2022, Agosta

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International

Abstract

Pathogens and their hosts are embedded within the larger biosphere, what Darwin called the “entangled bank.” Emerging infectious disease occurs when a parasite “switches” to a new host. Understanding the dynamics of emerging disease requires understanding the dynamics of host-switching, which requires a more general understanding of how the biosphere and its constituent members cope when conditions change. The Stockholm paradigm is an integrative evolutionary framework that describes how living systems cope with change by oscillating between exploiting and exploring the geographical and functional dimensions of their environments. It combines organismal capacity, ecological opportunity, and the repeated external perturbations to the conditions that drive the interaction between capacity and opportunity, catalyzing the dynamics of the entangled bank. The Stockholm paradigm makes clear that emerging disease is an expected outcome of the expression of the same evolutionary potential that governs the response of the rest of the biosphere when conditions change.