Species' Life-History Traits Explain Interspecific Variation in Reservoir Competence: A Possible Mechanism Underlying the Dilution Effect

Hosts species for multi-host pathogens show considerable variation in the species' reservoir competence, which is usually used to measure species' potential to maintain and transmit these pathogens. Although accumulating research has proposed a trade-off between life-history strategies and...

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Published in:PloS one Vol. 8; no. 1; p. e54341
Main Authors: Huang, Zheng Y. X., de Boer, Willem F., van Langevelde, Frank, Olson, Valerie, Blackburn, Tim M., Prins, Herbert H. T.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States Public Library of Science 24.01.2013
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects:
Analysis
Animal behavior
Animals
Biodiversity
Biology
birds
Birds - genetics
Birds - microbiology
Birds - virology
Body mass
Body Size
Borrelia
Borrelia burgdorferi - physiology
Clutch Size
Clutches
community
Dilution
Disease Reservoirs - microbiology
Disease Reservoirs - veterinary
Disease Reservoirs - virology
diversity
Eastern equine encephalitis
Ecology
Encephalitis
Encephalitis Virus, Eastern Equine - physiology
Encephalomyelitis, Eastern Equine - genetics
Encephalomyelitis, Eastern Equine - virology
Genetic Variation
Health risks
Horses - genetics
Horses - microbiology
Horses - virology
Host Specificity
immune defenses
infectious-diseases
Interspecific
Life history
Litter Size
Local population
Lyme disease
Lyme Disease - genetics
Lyme Disease - microbiology
lyme-disease risk
Mammals - genetics
Mammals - microbiology
Mammals - virology
Medicine
Pathogens
Phylogenetics
Phylogeny
Population studies
Risk factors
Species extinction
Species Specificity
Studies
transmission
Variation
Vector-borne diseases
Veterinary Science
West Nile fever
West Nile Fever - genetics
West Nile Fever - virology
West Nile virus - physiology
west-nile-virus
United Kingdom > UK
ISSN:1932-6203, 1932-6203
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Hosts species for multi-host pathogens show considerable variation in the species' reservoir competence, which is usually used to measure species' potential to maintain and transmit these pathogens. Although accumulating research has proposed a trade-off between life-history strategies and immune defences, only a few studies extended this to host species' reservoir competence. Using a phylogenetic comparative approach, we studied the relationships between some species' life-history traits and reservoir competence in three emerging infectious vector-borne disease systems, namely Lyme disease, West Nile Encephalitis (WNE) and Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE). The results showed that interspecific variation in reservoir competence could be partly explained by the species' life histories. Species with larger body mass (for hosts of Lyme disease and WNE) or smaller clutch size (for hosts of EEE) had a lower reservoir competence [corrected]. Given that both larger body mass and smaller clutch size were linked to higher extinction risk of local populations, our study suggests that with decreasing biodiversity, species with a higher reservoir competence are more likely to remain in the community, and thereby increase the risk of transmitting these pathogens, which might be a possible mechanism underlying the dilution effect.
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Final approval: HP. Conceived and designed the experiments: ZH WFB FL. Analyzed the data: ZH VO. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: VO TB. Wrote the paper: ZH.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0054341