Invasive plants facilitated by socioeconomic change harbor vectors of scrub typhus and spotted fever.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Ecological determinants of most emerging vector-borne diseases are understudied, particularly for neglected tropical disease. Moreover, although socioeconomic impacts can have significant downstream effects on human risks to vector-borne diseases via a change in land cover, particularly facilitating the invasion of exotic plants, related studies remains very scarce. Scrub typhus and spotted fever are neglected diseases emerging around the globe and are transmitted by chigger mites and ticks infective of Orientia tsutsugamushi and Rickettsia spp., respectively, with small mammals as the primary hosts of both vectors.

Methodology/principal findings

We investigated how invasions of the plant Leucaena leucocephala caused by widespread abandonment of farmlands driven b

SUBMITTER: Wei CY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6994164 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature