Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

The effects of community composition, landscape structure, and climate on host-pathogen interactions

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/5q47rr124

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  • Like other species interactions in ecological systems, host-pathogen interactions are influenced by environmental factors, landscape characteristics and the broader community context. My thesis explores the potential influences of food-web interactions (Chapter 2), climate change (Chapter 3), landscape structure and host movement patterns (Chapter 4), and the combined influences of local community context and regional processes (Chapter 5) on host-pathogen interactions. Infectious diseases transmitted by vectors depend on the interactions between the vector and other species within the community. In Chapter 2 I develop a theoretical model integrating predator-prey and host-pathogen theory to examine the effect of predator-vector interactions on vector-transmitted diseases. Predation on a vector may drastically slow a pathogen's spread, and increase host abundance by reducing—or eliminating—infection in the host population. The introduction of a predator can lead to a negative relationship between prevalence and vector fecundity, with the pathogen being driven out of the system at high rates of predation or fecundity. Chapter 3 examines how temperature influences the biology of a parasite, Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense, and its tsetse fly vector in order to examine the potential effects of global warming on sleeping sickness. Model results indicate that projected warming over the next 50–100 years is likely to significantly shift the distribution of sleeping sickness in Africa. The modeling approach presented in Chapter 3 provides a framework for using the climate-sensitive aspects of vector and pathogen biology to predict changes in disease prevalence and risk due to climate change. The spread and persistence of generalist pathogens that infect multiple host species are influenced by spatial heterogeneity in host composition and the movement patterns of different host species. Chapter 4 uses a metapopulation disease model to identify the potential effects of landscape connectivity, patch heterogeneity, and host community composition on the spread, prevalence, and persistence of multi-host pathogens at the local and regional scales. In an observational study of barley and cereal yellow dwarf viruses (B/CYDV) in a set of Cascades meadows, I found that patterns of disease prevalence are primarily driven by the diversity and composition of the local host community (Chapter 5).
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