Context-dependent host dispersal and habitat fragmentation determine heterogeneity in infected tick burdens: an agent-based modelling study.

ABSTRACT: As the incidence of tick-borne diseases has sharply increased over the past decade, with serious consequences for human and animal health, there is a need to identify ecological drivers contributing to heterogeneity in tick-borne disease risk. In particular, the relative importance of animal host dispersal behaviour in its three context-dependent phases of emigration, transfer and settlement is relatively unexplored. We built a spatially explicit agent-based model to investigate how the host dispersal process, in concert with the tick and host demographic processes, habitat fragmentation and the pathogen transmission process, affects infected tick distributions among hosts. A sensitivity analysis explored the impacts of different input parameters on infected tick burdens on hosts and infec

SUBMITTER: Tardy O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8965412 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature