Parasite consumption and host interference can inhibit disease spread in dense populations

Disease dynamics hinge on parasite transmission among hosts. However, canonical models for transmission often fit data poorly, limiting predictive ability. One solution involves building mechanistic yet general links between host behaviour and disease spread. To illustrate, we focus on the exposure...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology letters 2013-05, Vol.16 (5), p.626-634
Main Authors: Civitello, David J., Pearsall, Susan, Duffy, Meghan A., Hall, Spencer R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal populations
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Animals
Biological and medical sciences
Daphnia
Daphnia - microbiology
Daphnia dentifera
Disease Outbreaks
Disease transmission
Feeding Behavior
foraging
Foraging behavior
Freshwater
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General aspects
host-parasite
Host-Pathogen Interactions
Indiana
interference
Metschnikowia - pathogenicity
Metschnikowia - physiology
Metschnikowia bicuspidata
Models, Biological
parasite consumption
Parasitic diseases
Plankton
Population Density
Spores, Fungal
transmission
Zooplankton
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Disease dynamics hinge on parasite transmission among hosts. However, canonical models for transmission often fit data poorly, limiting predictive ability. One solution involves building mechanistic yet general links between host behaviour and disease spread. To illustrate, we focus on the exposure component of transmission for hosts that consume their parasites, combining experiments, models and field data. Models of transmission that incorporate parasite consumption and foraging interference among hosts vastly outperformed alternatives when fit to experimental data using a zooplankton host (Daphnia dentifera) that consumes spores of a fungus (Metschnikowia bicuspidata). Once plugged into a fully dynamic model, both mechanisms inhibited epidemics overall. Foraging interference further depressed parasite invasion and prevalence at high host density, creating unimodal (hump‐shaped) relationships between host density and these indices. These novel results qualitatively matched a unimodal density–prevalence relationship in natural epidemics. Ultimately, a mechanistic approach to transmission can reveal new insights into disease outbreaks.
ISSN:1461-023X
1461-0248
DOI:10.1111/ele.12089