Fig 1.
Overview of effects of DFTD on Tasmanian devils from symptoms to population level and community level effects to cascading ecological effects on other native mammals and genetic consequences of ecological relesse of a mesopredator.
A) Image of a healthy Tasmanian devil adult (Image: Menna Jones). B) Image of a Tasmanian devil infected with DFTD (Image: Rodrigo Hamede). C) Map of DFTD origin (*), and spread throughout Tasmania; color codes indicate year(s) of introduction to a geographic area. D) Devil density prior to DFTD discovery (1996), compared with 2019 (adapted from [2]) demonstrating DFTD-induced population declines. E) A trophic cascade, showing the effect of the numbers of generations a devil population is diseased and resulting demographic, behavioral, and evolutionary effects at lower trophic levels. F) Evidence for eco-evolutionary shifts in spotted-tailed quolls associated with devils and DFTD. Left: ecological variation among quolls covaries with devil density (adapted from [7,8]); right: quoll population genomic patterns associated with devil density and duration of DFTD’s presence on the landscape, including effects on quoll gene flow and selection (adapted from [11]). Abbreviation: DFTD: devil facial tumor disease.
Fig 2.
Coevolution in the devil-DFTD system.
A) Contributions of the devil genome, DFTD genome, and devil × DFTD genomic interactions in explaining variation in how quickly susceptible devils became infected with DFTD (a proxy for force of infection) [32]. Probability of B) devil persistence and C) devil-DFTD coexistence 50 generations following DFTD arrival. The trait pairs included: (1) devil infection resistance/DFTD transmissibility, (2) devil resistance to tumor growth/DFTD growth rate, and (3) devil tolerance/tumor virulence. D) Final devil population size relative to initial population size in simulations where devils and DFTD coexisted for 50 generations (adapted from [33]). Abbreviation: DFTD: devil facial tumor disease.