Disease- Ecology

 Infectious diseases have long been known to cause devastating illnesses in humans, crops, and livestock, but until recently pathogens were assumed to have little impact on wild plant and animal populations, except in rare and sometimes spectacular die-off events. During the past two decades, it has become increasingly apparent that parasitic organisms are not only a common and integral part of ecosystems, but they also influence the abundance of wild populations, can cause extinctions of their hosts, and serve as drivers of evolution (Hudson et al. 2002). The field of disease ecology, defined as the ecological study of host-pathogen interactions within the context of their environment and evolution, has grown out of this awareness of the pervasive role of pathogens in ecosystems. At the foundation of disease ecology are efforts to understand pathogen transmission and spread over space and time and impacts on host populations. These goals differ from those of related fields such as parasitology, which focuses on parasite taxonomy and life cycles, and epidemiology, which aims to identify risk factors for infectious and non-infectious diseases. Here we review the conceptual and mathematical foundations of disease ecology and consider how ecological and evolutionary studies can be used to improve disease control.

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