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

Silk, Matthew J.; Fefferman, Nina H.

doi:10.1007/s00265-021-03055-8

Cited by 20 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 158 publications

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“…A long‐recognised cost of being social is the increased risk of encountering a socially transmitted infectious disease or parasite. Studies analysing disease transmission through social networks confirm that high sociability can increase transmission by increasing the frequency of interactions with other individuals, but that the specific dynamics of transmission may differ among diseases and ecological settings (Silk & Fefferman, 2021; Albery et al ., 2021a). Indeed, such studies have demonstrated that the transmission of contagious diseases appears to be related to network architecture (Kappeler, Cremer & Nunn, 2015; Silk et al ., 2019).…”

Section: The Maintenance Of Variation In Sociability and Its Costs An...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sociability as a personality trait in animals: methods, causes and consequences

et al. 2021

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Within animal populations there is variation among individuals in their tendency to be social, where more sociable individuals associate more with other individuals. Consistent inter‐individual variation in ‘sociability’ is considered one of the major axes of personality variation in animals along with aggressiveness, activity, exploration and boldness. Not only is variation in sociability important in terms of animal personalities, but it holds particular significance for, and can be informed by, two other topics of major interest: social networks and collective behaviour. Further, knowledge of what generates inter‐individual variation in social behaviour also holds applied implications, such as understanding disorders of social behaviour in humans. In turn, research using non‐human animals in the genetics, neuroscience and physiology of these disorders can inform our understanding of sociability. For the first time, this review brings together insights across these areas of research, across animal taxa from primates to invertebrates, and across studies from both the laboratory and field. We show there are mixed results in whether and how sociability correlates with other major behavioural traits. Whether and in what direction these correlations are observed may differ with individual traits such as sex and body condition, as well as ecological conditions. A large body of evidence provides the proximate mechanisms for why individuals vary in their social tendency. Evidence exists for the importance of genes and their expression, chemical messengers, social interactions and the environment in determining an individual's social tendency, although the specifics vary with species and other variables such as age, and interactions amongst these proximate factors. Less well understood is how evolution can maintain consistent variation in social tendencies within populations. Shifts in the benefits and costs of social tendencies over time, as well as the social niche hypothesis, are currently the best supported theories for how variation in sociability can evolve and be maintained in populations. Increased exposure to infectious diseases is the best documented cost of a greater social tendency, and benefits include greater access to socially transmitted information. We also highlight that direct evidence for more sociable individuals being safer from predators is lacking. Variation in sociability is likely to have broad ecological consequences, but beyond its importance in the spread of infectious diseases, direct evidence is limited to a few examples related to dispersal and invasive species biology. Overall, our knowledge of inter‐individual variation in sociability is highly skewed towards the proximate mechanisms. Our review also demonstrates, however, that considering research from social networks and collective behaviour greatly enriches our understanding of sociability, highlighting the need for greater integration of these approaches into future animal personality research to address the imbalance in ou...

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Section: The Maintenance Of Variation In Sociability and Its Costs An...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sociability as a personality trait in animals: methods, causes and consequences

et al. 2021

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“…These include, but are not limited to, social context, sampling biases and demographic and environmental stochasticity. Population social structure, for example, will constrain pathogen spread within a host population (Silk & Fefferman, 2021) and contact patterns will provide potential transmission routes through different parts of the host population network (Sah et al, 2017). Similarly to the spatial example above, failing to account for social context can lead to biased estimates of maintenance potential if there are asymmetries in contact rates or shedding between individuals in different regions of the network (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Specifically, the fundamental reproductive number

R_{0}

—the number of infected individuals produced by an average susceptible individual in a fully susceptible population—is the product of a dynamic disease process and is the canonical, although not exclusive (e.g. critical community size, long‐term transient persistence; Silk & Fefferman, 2021; Viana et al, 2014), metric of maintenance potential (Fenton et al, 2015; Palmer, 2013; Stewart Merrill & Johnson, 2020). When

R_{0} > 1

for a particular species in a multihost community, this means that a pathogen can invade and, given fairly general assumptions about host births and deaths (Fenton et al, 2015), persist enzootically.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High prevalence does not necessarily equal maintenance species: Avoiding biased claims of disease reservoirs when using surveillance data

Wilber

Demarchi

Fefferman

et al. 2022

Journal of Animal Ecology

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1. Many pathogens of public health and conservation concern persist in host communities. Identifying candidate maintenance and reservoir species is therefore a central component of disease management. The term maintenance species implies that if all species but the putative maintenance species were removed, then the pathogen would still persist. In the absence of field manipulations, this statement inherently requires a causal or mechanistic model to assess.2. However, we lack a systematic understanding of (i) how often conclusions are made about maintenance and reservoir species without reference to mechanistic models (ii) what types of biases may be associated with these conclusions and (iii) how explicitly invoking causal or mechanistic modelling can help ameliorate these biases. Filling these knowledge gaps is critical for robust inference about pathogen persistence and spillover in multihost-parasite systems, with clear implications for human and wildlife health.3. To address these gaps, we performed a literature review on the evidence previous studies have used to make claims regarding maintenance or reservoir species. We then developed multihost-parasite models to explore and demonstrate common biases that could arise when inferring maintenance potential from observational prevalence data. Finally, we developed new theory to show how model-driven inference of maintenance species can minimize and eliminate emergent biases. 4. In our review, we found that 83% of studies used some form of observational prevalence data to draw conclusions on maintenance potential and only 6% of these studies combined observational data with mechanistic modelling. Using our model, we demonstrate how the community, spatial and temporal context of observational data can lead to substantial biases in inferences of maintenance potential. Importantly, our theory identifies that model-driven inference of maintenance species elucidates other streams of observational data that can be leveraged to correct these biases.

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“…In this case, correlative evidence across primate species suggests bidirectional effects between host social structure and their pathogens. Silk and Fefferman (2021) examine the role of social structure and social dynamics in maintaining endemic disease. Through their synthetic theoretical and empirical work, they highlight the importance of both social structure and dynamics in maintaining reservoirs of agricultural and zoonotic diseases.…”

Section: Sociality and Disease: Behavioral Perspectives In Ecological...mentioning

confidence: 99%