To this data set tests for association between hosts and pathogens (see Methods) were applied. The index of selectivity of pathogen (ISP), and its significance, is shown in Table 2 for the five viruses. The distribution of three of five analysed viruses over their hosts was significantly non-random, i.e. some of the available hosts were preferentially infected. Fig. 1 shows the relationship between prevalence and the ISP for the five viruses. A positive correlation was found for both parameters (r = 0.9347, P = 0.0189 in a Spearman rank correlation test), i.e., the more host-selective viruses were those with a highest prevalence in the analysed ecosystem. Similarly, the index of selectivity of the host (ISH), and its significance, was calculated for the 21 host plant species in Table 1 , and values are shown in Table 3 . For about half (9/21) of the analysed hosts (Amaranthus spp., Cirsium arvense, Convolvulus arvensis, Diplotaxis erucoides, Lactuca serriola, Medicago sativa, Portulaca oleracea, Solanum nigrum and Taraxacum spp.) differences in the prevalence of the five viruses departed significantly from random. Fig. 2 shows the relationship between virus prevalence and the ISH for the 21 host species. Again, a positive correlation between both parameters was found (r = 0.5161, P = 0.0166, in a Spearman rank correlation test), i.e., the more virus-selective hosts were those with a higher prevalence of virus infection. The relationships between prevalence and selectivity for viruses and hosts were not due to a coincidence in the frequency of infection among hosts by different viruses, as shown by a contingency analysis of counts of infected hosts by the different viruses (P,10 24 ).