Soil-transmitted helminthiases: implications of climate change and human behavior

Finding Them Before They Find Us: Informatics, Parasites, and Environments in Accelerating Climate Change

“…At this time, there is growing interest in parasites as we begin to understand more and more that there are direct connections among climate change, biodiversity dynamics, and emerging infectious disease (EID). Parasites occupy a central role in efforts to develop proactive protocols for monitoring changes in ecosystem structure and for detecting the potential for emerging disease in resident and colonizing host species, be they human, livestock, or wildlife (Daszak et al, 2000;Brooks and Hoberg, 2006, 2008Patz et al, 2008;Agosta et al, 2010;Hoberg, 2010;Weaver et al, 2010;Hartigan et al, 2012;Altizer et al, 2013;Hoberg and Brooks, 2013). Parasites, especially those with specialized transmission dynamics, including complex life cycles, are not only agents of disease in humans, food-animal resources, crops, and wildlife, they are also powerful representations of the ecological and historical context of the diseases they cause (Dobson and Hudson, 1986;Dobson and May, 1986a, b;Dobson and Carper, 1992;Hoberg, 1997;Dobson and Foufopoulos, 2001;Marcogliese, 2001Marcogliese, , 2005Nieberding and Olivieri, 2007;Hoberg and Brooks, 2008;Rosenthal, 2008;Lafferty, 2009;Kilpatrick, 2011;Kuris, 2012).…”

“…Parasites and parasitologists reside at the expanding nexus of interacting crises of biodiversity, climate stability and change, and emerging infectious diseases Mora and Zapata, 2013). Clearly, a substantial and potentially irreversible challenge to the distribution and continuity of biodiversity, ecosystem integrity and sustainability, and socioeconomic stability, through changing interfaces and ecotones, influencing patterns of disease, emerges directly from the footprint of accelerating climate warming and its attendant environmental perturbation (e.g., Parmesan and Yohe, 2003;Lovejoy and Hannah, 2005;Patz et al, 2005;Lawler et al, 2009;Post et al, 2009;Weaver et al, 2010;IPCC, 2007aIPCC, , b, 2013Meltofte et al, 2013). Equally clearly, the nature, scope, and scale of anthropogenic climate warming are pervasive, and anticipating unprecedented perturbation across the biosphere necessitates both the incorporation of historical and contemporary insights regarding the structure and distribution of biodiverse systems as well as the development of novel integrative approaches to serve as a framework in which to understand the impacts and effects of such change.…”

Future consequences and challenges for dairy cow production systems arising from climate change in Central Europe – a review

“…To achieve more precise epidemiological forecasts, risk maps, extended long-term data sets and improved statistical approaches connecting different information, for example thresholds or tolerances of parasite developmental stages to real environmental conditions, are needed (Weaver et al, 2010). Furthermore, it is necessary to define adequate spatial dimensions for the evaluation of seasonal patterns (Pascual and Dobson, 2005) and, in addition, there is the question which environmental drivers are really relevant for any potential changes in disease risk and which factors affect them (Altizer et al, 2006).…”

“…Geographical and climate databases (Malone et al, 1998), together with the distribution of parasites obtained from field studies including seasonal patterns (Waller et al, 2004;Altizer et al, 2006) provide a broader picture of changes in the patterns of helminth infections. Retrospective interpretation of available data such as natural phenomena and linked cases (van Dijk et al, 2008;Wu et al, 2008) or creation of climate model predictions (Rausch et al, 2007;Zhou et al, 2008;Fox et al, 2011) are further promising approaches being applied.To achieve more precise epidemiological forecasts, risk maps, extended long-term data sets and improved statistical approaches connecting different information, for example thresholds or tolerances of parasite developmental stages to real environmental conditions, are needed (Weaver et al, 2010). Furthermore, it is necessary to define adequate spatial dimensions for the evaluation of seasonal patterns (Pascual and Dobson, 2005) and, in addition, there is the question which environmental drivers are really relevant for any potential changes in disease risk and which factors affect them (Altizer et al, 2006).…”

Evolution in action: climate change, biodiversity dynamics and emerging infectious disease

“…Accelerating climate warming and environmental perturbation constitute a critical threat to ecosystem integrity and sustainability, the distribution and continuity of biodiversity, socio-economic stability, and changing interfaces and ecotones influencing patterns of disease [8,[10][11][12][13][14][15]. The scope, scale and pervasive nature of anthropogenic climate warming anticipate substantial impacts across the biosphere and necessitate an integrative approach to understanding environmental change that incorporates historical and contemporary insights about the factors that have determined the structure and distribution of biodiverse systems.…”