Pathogen persistence in the environment and insect-baculovirus interactions: disease-density thresholds, epidemic burnout, and insect outbreaks.

ABSTRACT: Classical epidemic theory focuses on directly transmitted pathogens, but many pathogens are instead transmitted when hosts encounter infectious particles. Theory has shown that for such diseases pathogen persistence time in the environment can strongly affect disease dynamics, but estimates of persistence time, and consequently tests of the theory, are extremely rare. We consider the consequences of persistence time for the dynamics of the gypsy moth baculovirus, a pathogen transmitted when larvae consume foliage contaminated with particles released from infectious cadavers. Using field-transmission experiments, we are able to estimate persistence time under natural conditions, and inserting our estimates into a standard epidemic model suggests that epidemics are often terminated by a comb

SUBMITTER: Fuller E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3814039 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature