Defining an epidemiological landscape that connects movement ecology to pathogen transmission and pace-of-life

Kezia Manlove; Mark Wilber; Lauren White; Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau; Anni Yang; Marie L J Gilbertson; Meggan E Craft; Paul C Cross; George Wittemyer; Kim M Pepin

doi:10.1111/ele.14032

Defining an epidemiological landscape that connects movement ecology to pathogen transmission and pace-of-life

Ecol Lett. 2022 Aug;25(8):1760-1782. doi: 10.1111/ele.14032. Epub 2022 Jul 5.

Authors

Kezia Manlove¹, Mark Wilber², Lauren White³, Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau⁴, Anni Yang^{5

6

7}, Marie L J Gilbertson^{8

9}, Meggan E Craft¹⁰, Paul C Cross¹¹, George Wittemyer⁵, Kim M Pepin⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Wildland Resources and Ecology Center, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA.
² Department of Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries, University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.
³ National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, University of Maryland, Annapolis, Maryland, USA.
⁴ Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, USA.
⁵ Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
⁶ National Wildlife Research Center, United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services, National Wildlife Research Center, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
⁷ Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA.
⁸ Department of Veterinary Population Medicine, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.
⁹ Wisconsin Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.
¹¹ U.S. Geological Survey, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Bozeman, Montana, USA.

PMID: 35791088
DOI: 10.1111/ele.14032

Abstract

Pathogen transmission depends on host density, mobility and contact. These components emerge from host and pathogen movements that themselves arise through interactions with the surrounding environment. The environment, the emergent host and pathogen movements, and the subsequent patterns of density, mobility and contact form an 'epidemiological landscape' connecting the environment to specific locations where transmissions occur. Conventionally, the epidemiological landscape has been described in terms of the geographical coordinates where hosts or pathogens are located. We advocate for an alternative approach that relates those locations to attributes of the local environment. Environmental descriptions can strengthen epidemiological forecasts by allowing for predictions even when local geographical data are not available. Environmental predictions are more accessible than ever thanks to new tools from movement ecology, and we introduce a 'movement-pathogen pace of life' heuristic to help identify aspects of movement that have the most influence on spatial epidemiology. By linking pathogen transmission directly to the environment, the epidemiological landscape offers an efficient path for using environmental information to inform models describing when and where transmission will occur.

Keywords: canonical activity mode; epidemiological landscape; host contact; host mobility; mining-modelling approach; movement mechanisms; movement-pathogen pace-of-life hypothesis; multipartite networks; spatial disease dynamics; transmission hotspot.

MeSH terms

Disease Transmission, Infectious*
Ecology*
Epidemiology*
Geography
Movement*

Abstract

MeSH terms

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