Vaccination: a way to address questions in behavioral and population ecology?

Host–parasite interactions have become an important topic in behavioral and population ecology. Among other fitness-related traits, the response to parasitism has implications for individuals, but also for the dynamics of host–parasite interactions. In this context, active immunization (vaccination) is increasingly used as an immunological tool to investigate the costs and associated trade-offs of the host immune response to parasitism. Active immunization experiments also provide information on the relationships between parasite resistance and sexual selection, and on implications of the variability of immune responses within natural populations.