Parasite infection pattern belies risk

What is it about?

This MS represents multiple years of detailed data surveys and targeted experiments to expose trade-offs in species’ responses to parasite and predation risks. We demonstrate three highly novel and emergent findings from this work. First, predation pressure can increase overall infection prevalence by aggregating hosts in high infection risk areas. Second, post-infection processes, especially host movements, scramble the signal of infection hot spots, decoupling infection processes from prevalence patterns. Finally, spatial gradients in infection risk and prevalence, and the selective pressures that drive them, can vary greatly, but deterministically, even over a small (10m) spatial scale. Collectively we believe these findings advance the exciting and rapidly growing field of spatial epidemiology.

Featured Image

Photo by Nicole Y-C on Unsplash

Photo by Nicole Y-C on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Species face multiple selective pressures that may require opposing responses to mitigate. Size-dependent selection pressures can decouple infection process and pattern even over small scales.