Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Immunology and Infectious Disease
The Palearctic view on a bat fungal disease
Published: 2023-12-08
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Zoology
The fungal infection causing white-nose disease in hibernating bats in North America has resulted in dramatic population declines of affected species since it was first discovered in 2007. Shortly after, it was demonstrated that the causative agent, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, is native to the Palearctic, where it also infects several bat species. However, infection in the Palearctic rarely [...]
When the microbiome shapes the host: immune evolution implications for infectious disease
Published: 2023-10-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Immunology of Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Molecular Genetics, Pathogenic Microbiology
The microbiome includes both “mutualist” and “pathogen” microbes, regulated by the same innate immune architecture. A major question has therefore been: how do hosts prevent pathogenic infections while maintaining beneficial microbes? One idea suggests hosts can selectively activate innate immunity upon pathogenic infection, but not mutualist colonisation. Another idea posits that hosts can [...]
The impact of rising temperatures on the prevalence of coral diseases and its predictability: a global meta-analysis
Published: 2023-01-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Statistical Models
Coral reefs are under threat from disease as climate change alters environmental conditions. Rising temperatures exacerbate coral disease, but this relationship is likely complex as other factors also influence coral disease prevalence. To better understand this relationship, we meta-analytically examined 108 studies for changes in global coral disease over time alongside temperature, expressed [...]
Spillover of human antivirals may promote resistant pathogens in animal reservoirs
Published: 2022-09-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Health Life Sciences, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Other Immunology and Infectious Disease, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Novel viral pathogens are causing diseases to emerge in humans, a challenge to which society has responded with technological innovations such as antiviral therapies. Antivirals can be rapidly deployed to mitigate severe disease, and with vaccines, save human lives and provide a long-term safety net against new viral diseases. Yet with these advances come unforeseen consequences when antivirals [...]
The Risk of Avian Influenza in the Southern Ocean: A practical guide
Published: 2022-08-22
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences
Advice from Avian Influenza experts suggests that there is a high risk that Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza will arrive in the Southern Ocean 2022/23-2024/25 austral summers. Since the beginning of 2022, the increasing intensity of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 outbreaks has resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of seabirds in the Northern Hemisphere, around the [...]
The coevolutionary mosaic of bat betacoronavirus emergence risk
Published: 2022-07-01
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biology, Biotechnology, Cell and Developmental Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Life Sciences
Pathogen evolution is one of the least predictable components of disease emergence, particularly in nature. Here, building on principles established by the geographic mosaic theory of coevolution, we develop a quantitative, spatially-explicit framework for mapping the evolutionary risk of viral emergence. Driven by interest in diseases like SARS, MERS, and COVID-19, we examine the global [...]
Acute blood parasite infections induce moderate physiological costs in juvenile raptor hosts
Published: 2022-02-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Parasitology
Parasites trigger reactions in hosts, leading to suppressive resistance and/or tolerance, aiming to limit the parasitic costs. Both colonization by parasites and defense activation can induce varying amount of costs for the host. Understanding parasite-induced effects on host fitness crucially depends on assessing parasitic costs in specific wild host-parasite systems. To evaluate potential [...]
Predicting the tripartite network of mosquito-borne disease
Published: 2021-11-18
Subjects: Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences
The potential for a pathogen to infect a host is mediated by traits of both the host and pathogen, as well as the complex interactions between them. Arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) require an intermediate vector, introducing an additional compatibility layer. Existing predictive models of host-virus networks rarely incorporate the unique aspects of vector transmission, instead treating [...]
WHY DO INSECTS EVOLVE IMMUNE PRIMING? A SEARCH FOR CROSSROADS
Published: 2021-08-24
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Education, Entomology, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences
Until recently, it was assumed that insects lack immune memory since they do not have vertebrate-like specialized memory cells. Therefore, their most well studied evolutionary response against pathogens was increased basal immunity. However, growing evidence suggests that many insects also exhibit a form of immune memory (immune priming), where prior exposure to a low dose of infection confers [...]
Spillback in the Anthropocene: the risk of human-to-wildlife pathogen transmission for conservation and public health
Published: 2021-04-12
Subjects: Bacteriology, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Public Health, Veterinary Infectious Diseases, Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Microbiology and Immunobiology, Veterinary Preventive Medicine, Epidemiology, and Public Health, Virology
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led to increased concern over transmission of pathogens from humans to animals (“spillback”) and its potential to threaten conservation and public health. To assess this threat, we reviewed published evidence of spillback events, including instances where spillback could threaten conservation and human health. We identified 97 verified examples of spillback, involving [...]
COVID-19 through the One Health lens: adding a missing perspective
Published: 2021-03-22
Subjects: Diseases, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Parasitology, Virus Diseases
The One Health concept offers an integrative approach to disease and health at the human-animal-environment interface. It has often been suggested to view the COVID-19 outbreak within this framework to better understand and mitigate this global crisis. Here, we discuss how the evolutionary ecology of host-pathogen systems can add a valuable additional perspective to the debate around SARS-CoV-2 [...]
Deploying Ecological Countermeasures as a Biosecurity Imperative
Published: 2021-03-08
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Public Health, Epidemiology, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Immunology of Infectious Disease, Immunopathology, International Public Health, Life Sciences, Maternal and Child Health, Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Immunology and Infectious Disease, Population Biology, Public Health, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Veterinary Infectious Diseases, Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Microbiology and Immunobiology, Veterinary Pathology and Pathobiology, Zoology
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought biosecurity to the forefront of national security policy. Land use change is a fundamental driver of zoonotic disease outbreaks, yet substantial study is yet required to unravel the mechanisms by which land use-induced spillover operates. Ecological degradation may be the 21st Century’s most overlooked security threat. Within the biosecurity context, we introduce [...]
The Three Ts of Pathogen Evolution During Zoonotic Emergence
Published: 2021-01-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences
There is increasing interest in the role that evolution may play in current and future pandemics, but there is often also considerable confusion about the actual evolutionary predictions. This may be, in part, due to a historical separation of evolutionary and medical fields, but there is a large, somewhat nuanced body of evidence-supported theory on the evolution of infectious disease. In this [...]
Parallel pandemics illustrate the need for One Health solutions
Published: 2021-01-01
Subjects: Environmental Public Health, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Immunology and Infectious Disease, Public Health, Translational Medical Research
African Swine Fever (ASF) was reported in domestic pigs in China in 2018. This highly contagious viral infection with no effective vaccine reached pandemic proportions by 2019, substantially impacting protein availability in the same region where the COVID-19 pandemic subsequently emerged. We discuss the genesis, spread, and wide-reaching impacts of an epidemic in a vital livestock species, [...]
Ecological Countermeasures for Pandemic Prevention: When Ecological Restoration is a Human Health Imperative
Published: 2020-12-06
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Bacteriology, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Public Health, Epidemiology, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Immunology of Infectious Disease, Immunopathology, Integrative Biology, International Public Health, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Parasitology, Pathogenic Microbiology, Population Biology, Public Health, Systems Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Veterinary Infectious Diseases, Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Microbiology and Immunobiology, Veterinary Pathology and Pathobiology, Zoology
Ecological restoration should be regarded as a public health service. Unfortunately, the lack of quantitative linkages between environmental and human health has limited recognition of these principle. Advent of COVID-19 pandemic provides the impetus for the further discussion. We propose ecological countermeasures as highly targeted, landscape-based interventions to arrest the drivers of land [...]