PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Dan J. Woodcock AU - Peter Krusche AU - Norval J. C. Strachan AU - Ken J. Forbes AU - Frederick M. Cohan AU - Guillaume Méric AU - Samuel K. Sheppard TI - Genomic plasticity and rapid host switching promote the evolution of generalism in the zoonotic pathogen <em>Campylobacter</em> AID - 10.1101/080077 DP - 2016 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 080077 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/10/080077.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/10/080077.full AB - Horizontal gene transfer accelerates bacterial adaptation to novel environments, allowing selection to act on genes that have evolved in multiple genetic backgrounds. This can lead to ecological specialization. However, little is known about how zoonotic bacteria maintain the ability to colonize multiple hosts whilst competing with specialists in the same niche. Here we develop a stochastic evolutionary model and show how genetic transfer of niche specifying genes and the opportunity for host transition can interact to promote the emergence of host generalist lineages of the zoonotic bacterium Campylobacter. Using a modelling approach we show that increasing levels of recombination enhance the efficiency with which selection can fix combinations of beneficial alleles, speeding adaptation. We then show how these predictions change in a multi-host system, with low levels of recombination, consistent with real r/m estimates, increasing the standing variation in the population, allowing a more effective response to changes in the selective landscape. Our analysis explains how observed gradients of host specialism and generalism can evolve in a multihost system through the transfer of ecologically important loci among coexisting strains.