Host heterogeneity can affect parasite transmission, but determining underlying traits and incorporating them into transmission models remains challenging. Body size is easily measured and affects numerous ecological interactions, including transmission. In the snail-schistosome system, larger snails have a higher exposure to parasites but lower susceptibility to infection per parasite. We quantified the effect of size-based heterogeneity on population-level transmission by conducting transmission trials in differently size-structured snail populations and competing size-dependent transmission models. Populations with greater proportions of large snails had lower prevalence, and small snails were shielded from infection by co-occurring large conspecifics. Furthermore, a fully dependent transmission model that incorporated body size in both exposure and susceptibility outperformed other candidate models considered. Incorporating traits such as body size, which are affected by and directly affect host ecology, into transmission models could yield insights into natural dynamics and disease mitigation in many systems.
Keywords: body size; heterogeneity; host traits; parasite transmission; schistosomiasis; transmission interference.
© 2023 The Ecological Society of America.