Toggle Main Menu Toggle Search

Open Access padlockePrints

Global change, parasite transmission and disease control: Lessons from ecology

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Mark Booth

Downloads


Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).


Abstract

© 2017 The Authors. Parasitic infections are ubiquitous in wildlife, livestock and human populations, and healthy ecosystems are often parasite rich. Yet, their negative impacts can be extreme. Understanding how both anticipated and cryptic changes in a system might affect parasite transmission at an individual, local and global level is critical for sustainable control in humans and livestock. Here we highlight and synthesize evidence regarding potential effects of ‘system changes’ (both climatic and anthropogenic) on parasite transmission from wild host-parasite systems. Such information could inform more efficient and sustainable parasite control programmes in domestic animals or humans. Many examples from diverse terrestrial and aquatic natural systems show how abiotic and biotic factors affected by system changes can interact additively, multiplicatively or antagonistically to influence parasite transmission, including through altered habitat structure, biodiversity, host demographics and evolution. Despite this, few studies of managed systems explicitly consider these higher-order interactions, or the subsequent effects of parasite evolution, which can conceal or exaggerate measured impacts of control actions. We call for a more integrated approach to investigating transmission dynamics, which recognizes these complexities and makes use of new technologies for data capture and monitoring, and to support robust predictions of altered parasite dynamics in a rapidly changing world.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Cable J, Barber I, Boag B, Ellison AR, Morgan ER, Murray K, Pascoe EL, Sait SM, Wilson AJ, Booth M

Publication type: Review

Publication status: Published

Journal: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Year: 2017

Volume: 372

Issue: 1719

Print publication date: 05/05/2017

Online publication date: 13/03/2017

Acceptance date: 25/08/2016

ISSN (print): 0962-8436

ISSN (electronic): 1471-2970

Publisher: Royal Society

URL: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2016.0088

DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2016.0088

PubMed id: 28289256


Share