Reconciling the Entomological Hazard and Disease Risk in the Lyme Disease System.

ABSTRACT: Lyme disease (LD) is a commonly cited model for the link between habitat loss and/or fragmentation and disease emergence, based in part on studies showing that forest patch size is negatively related to LD entomological risk. An equivalent relationship has not, however, been shown between patch size and LD incidence (LDI). Because entomological risk is measured at the patch scale, while LDI is generally assessed in relation to aggregate landscape statistics such as forest cover, we posit that the contribution of individual patches to human LD risk has not yet been directly evaluated. We design a model that directly links theoretical entomological risk at the patch scale to larger-scale epidemiological data. We evaluate its predictions for relative LD risk in artificial landscapes with vary

SUBMITTER: McClure M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5982087 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature