Social structure contains epidemics and regulates individual roles in disease transmission in a group-living mammal.

ABSTRACT: Population structure is critical to infectious disease transmission. As a result, theoretical and empirical contact network models of infectious disease spread are increasingly providing valuable insights into wildlife epidemiology. Analyzing an exceptionally detailed dataset on contact structure within a high-density population of European badgers Meles meles, we show that a modular contact network produced by spatially structured stable social groups, lead to smaller epidemics, particularly for infections with intermediate transmissibility. The key advance is that we identify considerable variation among individuals in their role in disease spread, with these new insights made possible by the detail in the badger dataset. Furthermore, the important impacts on epidemiology are foun

SUBMITTER: Rozins C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6303749 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature