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A study has been conducted to examine fitness costs of the resistance of Ipomoea purpurea to fungal isolates of Colletotrichum dematium through quantitative genetic analysis. Results indicated that there is no association between fitness costs and resistance. However, conditions unrelated to resistance such as tolerance was observed to involve fitness costs. This suggests that plants that have high tolerance to diseases have higher fitness costs in the presence of the disease and lower fitness in its absence.

Research was conducted to examine local adaptation in the insect-transmitted fungal pathogen Microbotryum violaceum and its perennial host plant Silene latifolia. Fungal strains and host plants from 14 populations were used to compare fungal infection success on allopatric and sympatric hosts in a cross-inoculation study. Results suggest that parasite-mediated selection for host resistance is more effective than its host-mediated selection for new virulence types in the pathogen.