1. Committee on Genetics, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
2. Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA

Correspondence to: Joy Bergelson^1,2 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to J.B. (e-mail: Email: jbergels@midway.uchicago.edu).

Abstract

The co-evolutionary 'arms race'¹ is a widely accepted model for the evolution of host–pathogen interactions. This model predicts that variation for disease resistance will be transient, and that host populations generally will be monomorphic at disease-resistance (R -gene) loci. However, plant populations show considerable polymorphism at R -gene loci involved in pathogen recognition². Here we have tested the arms-race model in Arabidopsis thaliana by analysing sequences flanking Rpm1, a gene conferring the ability to recognize Pseudomonas pathogens carrying AvrRpm1 orAvrB (ref. 3). We reject the arms-race hypothesis: resistance andsusceptibility alleles at this locus have co-existed for millions of years. To account for the age of alleles and the relative levels ofpolymorphism within allelic classes, we use coalescence theory to model the long-term accumulation of nucleotide polymorphism in the context of the short-term ecological dynamics of disease resistance. This analysis supports a 'trench warfare' hypothesis, inwhich advances and retreats of resistance-allele frequency maintain variation for disease resistance as a dynamic polymorphism⁴,⁵.