Impact of Land Use Changes and Habitat Fragmentation on the Eco-epidemiology of Tick-Borne Diseases

Abstract

The incidence of tick-borne diseases has increased in recent decades and accounts for the majority of vector-borne disease cases in temperate areas of Europe, North America, and Asia. This emergence has been attributed to multiple and interactive drivers including changes in climate, land use, abundance of key hosts, and people’s behaviors affecting the probability of human exposure to infected ticks. In this forum paper, we focus on how land use changes have shaped the eco-epidemiology of Ixodes scapularis-borne pathogens, in particular the Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto in the eastern United States. We use this as a model system, addressing other tick-borne disease systems as needed to illustrate patterns or processes. We first examine how land use interacts with abiotic conditions (microclimate) and biotic factors (e.g., host community composition) to influence the enzootic hazard, measured as the density of host-seeking I. scapularis nymphs infected with B. burgdorferi s.s. We then review the evidence of how specific landscape configuration, in particular forest fragmentation, influences the enzootic hazard and disease risk across spatial scales and urbanization levels. We emphasize the need for a dynamic understanding of landscapes based on tick and pathogen host movement and habitat use in relation to human resource provisioning. We propose a coupled natural-human systems framework for tick-borne diseases that accounts for the multiple interactions, nonlinearities and feedbacks in the system and conclude with a call for standardization of methodology and terminology to help integrate studies conducted at multiple scales.

Land-use change and rodent-borne diseases: hazards on the shared socioeconomic pathways

“…We acknowledge that our spatial analysis is restricted to a zoonotic hazard index derived from predicting the reservoir status of rodents [ 25 ]. Therefore, to account for human risk of rodent-borne pathogen exposure or risk of pathogen transmission is necessary to include different factors such as host density, rodent subspecies, pathogen circulation in a given area, pathogen prevalence, intermediate host populations, landscape structure, and human behaviour, among others [ 22 , 91 , 92 ]. All of these factors should be analysed at lower spatial scales (landscape-local).…”

Intestinal Helminths in Wild Rodents from Native Forest and Exotic Pine Plantations (Pinus radiata) in Central Chile

“…However, the effect on parasites and pathogens has only been recently addressed [ 10 , 15 , 47 ]. In this context, more studies are needed for a better understanding on the effects of pine plantations on parasites and pathogens of wildlife, including an ecological approach using multiple temporal and spatial scales [ 48 ]. This information will be useful for addressing the nexus between wildlife and zoonosis risks into land use planning, within the One Health framework [ 49 , 50 ].…”

Socio‐ecological drivers of multiple zoonotic hazards in highly urbanized cities

“…Understanding and managing these hazards requires acknowledging several key concepts highlighted throughout this perspective article. (1) There is an inherent ecological tradeoff between green or gray infrastructure and the presence of zoonotic hazards (Diuk-Wasser et al, 2021;Jennings et al, 2019;Lõhmus & Balbus, 2015;Soulsbury & White, 2015;Taguchi et al, 2020). While urban green spaces provide ecosystem services, including climate mitigation and physical and mental health benefits (Gómez-Baggethun & Barton, 2013;Gregory McPherson, 1992;Luederitz et al, 2015), these same spaces produce ecosystem disservices when they increase human exposure to pathogens and act as venues for zoonotic spillover (Shackleton et al, 2016;Vanwambeke et al, 2019).…”