3 ms·
The disease will never exert strong evolutionary pressure as the symptoms start appearing well after deer will have reproduced.
by awakeasleep 8y ago
The disease will never exert strong evolutionary pressure as the symptoms start appearing well after deer will have reproduced.
- GlenTheMachine 8y agoNo, the disease starts exhibiting symptoms after 2-3 years. Deer average five years and can live for up to ten years in the wild, and are reproductively active that entire time. So there is definitely some evolutionary pressure; a deer infected at age 1 year would be expected, on average, to have less than half the offspring of a healthy deer.
- Fomite 8y agoThere's also the very real question of "Is there a non-deleterious mutation that confers resistance?"