Abiotic and biotic factors jointly influence the contact and environmental transmission of a generalist pathogen

• Published in: Ecology and evolution Vol. 14; no. 8; pp. e70167 - n/a
• Main Authors: Suh, Daniel C., Lance, Stacey L., Park, Andrew W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.08.2024; Wiley
• Subjects: Abiotic factors; Abundance; Amphibians; Biotic factors; community competence; Community composition; Composition effects; Disease transmission; diversity–disease relationships; Environmental Sciences & Ecology; Epidemics; Evolutionary Biology; Foot & mouth disease; Influence; Influenza; Low temperature; Pathogens; ranavirus; Reptiles & amphibians; Temperature; Temperature effects; Viruses; Wetlands; Savannah River; United States > US; diversity–disease relationships; wetlands; ranavirus; community competence; abundance; temperature; amphibians
• ISSN: 2045-7758; 2045-7758
• DOI: 10.1002/ece3.70167

The joint influence of abiotic and biotic factors is important for understanding the transmission of generalist pathogens. Abiotic factors such as temperature can directly influence pathogen persistence in the environment and will also affect biotic factors, such as host community composition and abundance. At intermediate spatial scales, the effects of temperature, community composition, and host abundance are expected to contribute to generalist pathogen transmission. We use a simple transmission model to explain and predict how host community composition, host abundance, and environmental pathogen persistence times can independently and jointly influence transmission. Our transmission model clarifies how abiotic and biotic factors can synergistically support the transmission of a pathogen. The empirical data show that high community competence, high abundance, and low temperatures correlate with high levels of transmission of ranavirus in larval amphibian communities. Discrete wetlands inhabited by larval amphibians in the presence of ranavirus provide a compelling case study comprising distinct host communities at a spatial scale anticipated to demonstrate abiotic and biotic influence on transmission. We use these host communities to observe phenomena demonstrated in our theoretical model. These findings emphasize the importance of considering both abiotic and biotic factors, and concomitant direct and indirect mechanisms, in the study of pathogen transmission and should extend to other generalist pathogens with the capacity for environmental transmission. Host community composition and abundance and environmental conditions such as ambient temperature all influence disease transmission but are often considered independently. We use a theoretical model to study the joint effects of these factors on the transmission of a generalist pathogen with capacity for contact and environmental transmission, and then we compare these results to empirical observations of ranavirus transmission in larval amphibian communities to show that these factors jointly influence transmission.