Quality matters: resource quality for hosts and the timing of epidemics

Epidemiologists increasingly realize that species interactions (e.g. selective predation) can determine when epidemics start and end. We hypothesize here that resource quality can also strongly influence disease dynamics: epidemics can be inhibited when resource quality for hosts is too poor and too...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology letters 2009-02, Vol.12 (2), p.118-128
Main Authors: Hall, Spencer R, Knight, Christine J, Becker, Claes R, Duffy, Meghan A, Tessier, Alan J, Cáceres, Carla E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Animals
Biological and medical sciences
Consumer-resource
Daphnia - microbiology
Daphnia dentifera
Daphnia-Metschnikowia
Disease transmission
epidemic
Epidemics
Female
Food Chain
Food chains
Freshwater
Freshwater ecology
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General aspects
host-parasite
Lakes
Metschnikowia - physiology
Metschnikowia bicuspidata
Models, Theoretical
Population Density
Population Dynamics
resource quality
transmission rate
Zooplankton - physiology
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Summary:Epidemiologists increasingly realize that species interactions (e.g. selective predation) can determine when epidemics start and end. We hypothesize here that resource quality can also strongly influence disease dynamics: epidemics can be inhibited when resource quality for hosts is too poor and too good. In three lakes, resource quality for the zooplankton host (Daphnia dentifera) was poor when fungal epidemics (Metschnikowia bicuspidata) commenced and increased as epidemics waned. Experiments using variation in algal food showed that resource quality had conflicting effects on underlying epidemiology: high-quality food induced large production of infective propagules (spores) and high birth rate but also reduced transmission. A model then illustrated how these underlying correlations can inhibit the start of epidemics (when spore production/birth rate are too low) but also catalyse their end (when transmission becomes too low). This resource quality mechanism is likely to interface with other ones controlling disease dynamics and warrants closer evaluation.
ISSN:1461-023X
1461-0248
DOI:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2008.01264.x