Multimodal pathogen transmission as a limiting factor in host distribution.

ABSTRACT: Theoretical models suggest that infectious diseases could play a substantial role in determining the spatial extent of host species, but few studies have collected the empirical data required to test this hypothesis. Pathogens that sterilize their hosts or spread through frequency-dependent transmission could have especially strong effects on the limits of species' distributions because diseased hosts that are sterilized but not killed may continue to produce infectious stages and frequency-dependent transmission mechanisms are effective even at very low population densities. We collected spatial pathogen prevalence data and population abundance data for alpine carnations infected by the sterilizing pathogen Microbotryum dianthorum, a parasite that is spread through both frequency-dependen

SUBMITTER: Uricchio LH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9992245 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature