Data from: Variation and correlations between sexual, asexual and natural enemy resistance life-history traits in a natural plant pathogen population

Background:Understanding the mechanisms by which diversity is maintained
in pathogen populations is critical for epidemiological predictions.
Life-history trade-offs have been proposed as a hypothesis for explaining
long-term maintenance of variation in pathogen populations, yet the
empirical evidence supporting trade-offs has remained mixed. This is in
part due to the challenges of documenting successive pathogen life-history
stages in many pathosystems. Moreover, little is understood of the role of
natural enemies of pathogens on their life-history evolution. Results: We
characterize life-history-trait variation and possible trade-offs in
fungal pathogen Podosphaera plantaginis infecting the host plant Plantago
lanceolata. We measured the timing of both asexual and sexual stages, as
well as resistance to a hyperparasite of seven pathogen strains that vary
in their prevalence in nature. We find significant variation among the
strains in their life-history traits that constitute the infection cycle,
but no evidence for trade-offs among pathogen development stages, apart
from fast pathogen growth coninciding with fast hyperparasite growth.
Also, the seemingly least fit pathogen strain was the most prevalent in
the nature. Conclusions: We conclude that in the nature environmental
variation, and interactions with the antagonists of pathogens themselves
may maintain variation in pathogen populations.