Sickness‐induced lethargy can increase host contact rates and pathogen spread in water‐limited landscapes

Boogert

et al. 2020

Oikos

Social interactions present opportunities for both information and infection to spread through populations. Social learning is often proposed as a key benefit of sociality, while infectious disease spread are proposed as a major cost. Multiple empirical and theoretical studies have demonstrated the importance of social structure for the transmission of either information or harmful pathogens and parasites, but rarely in combination. We provide an overview of relevant empirical studies, discuss differences in the transmission processes of infection and information, and review how these processes have been modelled. Finally, we highlight ways in which animal social network structure and dynamics might mediate the tradeoff between the sharing of information and infection. We reveal how modular social network structures can promote the spread of information and mitigate against the spread of infection relative to other network structures. We discuss how the maintenance of long‐term social bonds, clustering of social contacts in time, and adaptive plasticity in behavioural interactions, all play important roles in influencing the transmission of information and infection. We provide novel hypotheses and suggest new directions for research that quantifies the transmission of information and infection simultaneously across different network structures to help tease apart their influence on the evolution of social behaviour.

Section: Responsive Network Dynamics and Transmission In Animalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infected or informed? Social structure and the simultaneous transmission of information and infectious disease

Evans

Boogert

et al. 2020

Oikos

“…However, in some landscapes reduced activity can increase transmission under some environmental conditions (e.g. in water-limited landscapes; [45]). For some pathogens and parasites, understanding the combined impact of these behavioural dynamics alongside disease dynamics generated by demographic processes will be important to quantifying infectious disease threat for populations of conservation concern.…”

Section: The Importance Of Network Dynamics In Disease Spread and Conmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, in some landscapes reduced activity can increase transmission under some environmental conditions (e.g. in water-limited landscapes; [45]). For some pathogens and parasites, understanding the combined impact of these behavioural dynamics alongside A comparison of the impact of infectious disease in two simulated small populations with different contact network structures (electronic supplementary material, 1.1 and 2).…”

Section: The Importance Of Network Dynamics In Disease Spread and Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating social behaviour, demography and disease dynamics in network models: applications to disease management in declining wildlife populations

Hodgson

Rozins

et al. 2019

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

The emergence and spread of infections can contribute to the decline and extinction of populations, particularly in conjunction with anthropogenic environmental change. The importance of heterogeneity in processes of transmission, resistance and tolerance is increasingly well understood in theory, but empirical studies that consider both the demographic and behavioural implications of infection are scarce. Non-random mixing of host individuals can impact the demographic thresholds that determine the amplification or attenuation of disease prevalence. Risk assessment and management of disease in threatened wildlife populations must therefore consider not just host density, but also the social structure of host populations. Here we integrate the most recent developments in epidemiological research from a demographic and social network perspective, and synthesize the latest developments in social network modelling for wildlife disease, to explore their applications to disease management in populations in decline and at risk of extinction. We use simulated examples to support our key points and reveal how disease-management strategies can and should exploit both behavioural and demographic information to prevent or control the spread of disease. Our synthesis highlights the importance of considering the combined impacts of demographic and behavioural processes in epidemics to successful disease management in a conservation context. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Linking behaviour to dynamics of populations and communities: application of novel approaches in behavioural ecology to conservation’.

“…house mice Mus musculus : Lopes et al 2016 ; common vampire bats Desmodus rotundus : Stockmaier et al 2018 , 2020 ). Typically, this would be expected to contribute to flattening the curve (Colman et al 2018 ); however, in some environments, lethargy can increase contact rates and therefore opportunities for transmission (Franz et al 2018 ). Some other sickness behaviours will clearly promote onward transmission, e.g.…”

Section: Social Dynamics and The Epidemic-endemic Trade-offmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of social structure and dynamics in the maintenance of endemic disease

Fefferman

2021

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

Social interactions are required for the direct transmission of infectious diseases. Consequently, the social network structure of populations plays a key role in shaping infectious disease dynamics. A huge research effort has examined how specific social network structures make populations more (or less) vulnerable to damaging epidemics. However, it can be just as important to understand how social networks can contribute to endemic disease dynamics, in which pathogens are maintained at stable levels for prolonged periods of time. Hosts that can maintain endemic disease may serve as keystone hosts for multi-host pathogens within an ecological community, and also have greater potential to act as key wildlife reservoirs of agricultural and zoonotic diseases. Here, we examine combinations of social and demographic processes that can foster endemic disease in hosts. We synthesise theoretical and empirical work to demonstrate the importance of both social structure and social dynamics in maintaining endemic disease. We also highlight the importance of distinguishing between the local and global persistence of infection and reveal how different social processes drive variation in the scale at which infectious diseases appear endemic. Our synthesis provides a framework by which to understand how sociality contributes to the long-term maintenance of infectious disease in wildlife hosts and provides a set of tools to unpick the social and demographic mechanisms involved in any given host–pathogen system. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00265-021-03055-8.