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40 results for “host heterogeneity”
Code and data for manuscript: Incorporating environmental heterogeneity and observation effort to predict host distribution and viral spillover from a bat reservoir.
<p>This is the source code and data required to reproduce data analysis and figures from the manuscript, "Incorporating environmental heterogeneity and observation effort to predict host distribution and viral spillover from a bat reservoir". </p>
Energy input, habitat heterogeneity, and host specificity on avian haemosporidian diversity at continental scales
<p>The correct identification of biotic and abiotic drivers affecting parasite diversity and assemblage composition at different spatial scales is crucial for understanding how pathogen distribution responds to anthropogenic disturbance and climate change. Here, we used a database of avian haemosporidian parasites to identify such drivers and their effect on the taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of genera Plasmodium, Haemoproteus, and Leucocytozoon from three zoogeographic regions. We explored how parasite diversity is related to energy input (i.e., temperature, precipitation, and potential evapotranspiration [PET]), to habitat heterogeneity (i.e., climatic seasonality, vegetation density, ecosystem heterogeneity, human disturbance, and host richness), and to a novel assemblage-level metric related to parasite niche overlap (degree of generalism). We found that the relative importance of the predictors differed between the three studied parasite genera and across diversity metrics. Among the most consistent predictors, host richness was positively related to the taxonomic diversity of the three genera. Energy input and human footprint explained the phylogenetic diversity of Haemoproteus. Finally, the degree of generalism explained the diversity of Plasmodium and Leucocytozoon. Our results suggest that different dimensions of haemosporidian diversity are shaped by energy input, host heterogeneity, and assembly processes related to parasite resource use within local parasite assemblages.</p>
Individual variation in the avian gut microbiota: The influence of host state and environmental heterogeneity
<div class="abstract-group metis-abstract"> <div class="article-section__content en main"> <p>The gut microbiota have important consequences for host biological processes and there is some evidence that they also affect fitness. However, the complex, interactive nature of ecological factors that influence the gut microbiota has scarcely been investigated in natural populations. We sampled the gut microbiota of wild great tits (<em>Parus major</em>) at different life stages allowing us to evaluate how microbiota varied with respect to a diverse range of key ecological factors of two broad types: (1) host state, namely age and sex, and the life history variables, timing of breeding, fecundity and reproductive success; and (2) the environment, including habitat type, the distance of the nest to the woodland edge, and the general nest and woodland site environments. The gut microbiota varied with life history and the environment in many ways that were largely dependent on age. Nestlings were far more sensitive to environmental variation than adults, pointing to a high degree of flexibility at an important time in development. As nestlings developed their microbiota from one to two weeks of life, they retained consistent (i.e., repeatable) among-individual differences. However these apparent individual differences were driven entirely by the effect of sharing the same nest. Our findings point to important early windows during development in which the gut microbiota are most sensitive to a variety of environmental drivers at multiple scales, and suggest reproductive timing, and hence potentially parental quality or food availability, are linked with the microbiota. Identifying and explicating the various ecological sources that shape an individual's gut bacteria is of vital importance for understanding the gut microbiota's role in animal fitness.</p> </div> </div> <div class="pb-dropzone"> </div>
High-content high-resolution microscopy and deep learning assisted analysis reveals host and bacterial heterogeneity during Shigella infection
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Individual variation in the avian gut microbiota: The influence of host state and environmental heterogeneity
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Energy input, habitat heterogeneity, and host specificity drive avian haemosporidian diversity at continental scales
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Data from: The evolution of parasite host range in heterogeneous host populations
<p>Theory on the evolution of niche width argues that resource heterogeneity selects for niche breadth. For parasites, this theory predicts that parasite populations will evolve, or maintain, broader host ranges when selected in genetically diverse host populations relative to homogeneous host populations. To test this prediction, we selected the bacterial parasite Serratia marcescens to kill Caenorhabditis elegans in populations that were genetically heterogeneous (50% mix of two experimental genotypes) or homogeneous (100% of either genotype). After 20 rounds of selection, we compared the host range of selected parasites by measuring parasite fitness (i.e. virulence, the selected fitness trait) on the two focal host genotypes and on a novel host genotype. As predicted, heterogeneous host populations selected for parasites with a broader host range: these parasite populations gained or maintained virulence on all host genotypes. This result contrasted with selection in homogeneous populations of one host genotype. Here, host range contracted, with parasite populations gaining virulence on the focal host genotype and losing virulence on the novel host genotype. This pattern was not, however, repeated with selection in homogeneous populations of the second host genotype: these parasite populations did not gain virulence on the focal host genotype, nor did they lose virulence on the novel host genotype. Our results indicate that host heterogeneity can maintain broader host ranges in parasite populations. Individual host genotypes, however, vary in the degree to which they select for specialization in parasite populations.</p>
Host heterogeneity mitigates virulence evolution
<p>Parasites often infect genetically diverse host populations, and the evolutionary trajectories of parasite populations may be shaped by levels of host heterogeneity. Mixed genotype host populations, compared to homogeneous host populations, can reduce parasite prevalence and potentially reduce rates of parasite adaptation due to tradeoffs associated with adapting to specific host genotypes. Here, we used experimental evolution to select for increased virulence in populations of the bacterial parasite <em>Serratia marcescens</em> exposed to either heterogenous or homogenous populations of<em> Caenorhabditis elegans</em>. We found that parasites exposed to heterogenous host populations evolved significantly less virulence than parasites exposed to homogeneous host populations over several hundred bacterial generations. Thus, host heterogeneity impeded parasite adaptation to host populations. While we detected tradeoffs in virulence evolution, parasite adaptation to two specific host genotypes also resulted in modestly increased virulence against the reciprocal host genotypes. These results suggest that parasite adaptation to heterogenous host populations may be impeded by both tradeoffs and a reduction in the efficacy of selection as different host genotypes exert different selective pressures on a parasite population.</p>
Forest structure and heterogeneity increase diversity and alter the composition of host-parasitoid networks
<p>Antagonistic host-parasitoid interactions can be quantified using bipartite and meta networks, which have the potential to reveal how habitat structural elements relate to this important ecosystem function. Here, we analysed the host-parasitoid interactions of cavity-nesting bees and wasps, as well as their abundance, diversity, and species richness with forest structural elements from 127 forest research plots in southwestern Germany. We found that parasitoid abundance, diversity, and species richness all increase with host abundance, a potential mediator between parasitoids and forest structure. Both parasitoid abundance and diversity increased with stand structural complexity, possibly mediated by the abundance of hosts. Additionally, parasitoid abundance increased with increasing standing deadwood and herb cover. The bipartite networks of host-parasitoid interactions showed higher connectance with increasing standing deadwood, herb cover, and host abundance. Analyses of interactions within the host-parasitoid metanetwork revealed that increasing host abundance and decreasing canopy cover diversify the suites of interactions present at the plot level. These results demonstrate that forest structural elements can improve the stability and resilience of host-parasitoid networks by promoting parasitoids and diversifying interactions in ecological networks.</p>
Forest structure and heterogeneity increase diversity and alter the composition of host-parasitoid networks
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Host heterogeneity mitigates virulence evolution
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Data from: The evolution of parasite host range in heterogeneous host populations
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Data from: Modelling the dispersal of the two main hosts of the raccoon rabies variant in heterogeneous environments with landscape genetics
Predicting the geographic spread of wildlife epidemics requires knowledge about the movement patterns of disease hosts or vectors. The field of landscape genetics provides valuable approaches to study dispersal indirectly, which in turn may be used to understand patterns of disease spread. Here, we applied landscape genetic analyses and spatially explicit models to identify the potential path of raccoon rabies spread in a mesocarnivore community. We used relatedness estimates derived from microsatellite genotypes of raccoons and striped skunks to investigate their dispersal patterns in a heterogeneous landscape composed predominantly of agricultural, forested and residential areas. Samples were collected in an area covering 22 000 km2 in southern Québec, where the raccoon rabies variant (RRV) was first detected in 2006. Multiple regressions on distance matrices revealed that genetic distance among male raccoons was strictly a function of geographic distance, while dispersal in female raccoons was significantly reduced by the presence of agricultural fields. In skunks, our results suggested that dispersal is increased in edge habitats between fields and forest fragments in both males and females. Resistance modelling allowed us to identify likely dispersal corridors used by these two rabies hosts, which may prove especially helpful for surveillance and control (e.g. oral vaccination) activities.
Data from: Whether larval amphibians school does not affect the parasite aggregation rule: testing the effects of host spatial heterogeneity in field and experimental studies
Almost all macroparasites show over-dispersed infections within natural host populations such that most parasites are distributed among a few heavily-infected individuals. Despite the importance of parasite aggregation for understanding system stability, the potential for population regulation, and super-spreading events, many questions persist about its underlying drivers. Theoretically, aggregation results from heterogeneity in host exposure, resistance, and tolerance. However, few studies have examined how host spatial arrangement – which likely affects both parasite encounter and density-dependent interactions – influences infection and dispersion, representing a critical gap in our current knowledge regarding the possible drivers of parasite aggregation. Using field data from over 165 ponds and 8,000 hosts, we evaluated how the spatial clustering of amphibian larvae within ponds 1) varied among different amphibian species, and 2), affected the distribution of parasites within the host population using Taylor's Power Law. A complementary mesocosm experiment used field-guided manipulations of the spatial arrangement of larval amphibians to create a gradient in host clustering while controlling host density, thereby testing for spatial effects on both infection success and aggregation by three different trematode species. Our field data indicated that larval amphibians exhibited significant spatial clustering that was well captured by Taylor's Power Law (R2 0.92 to 0.97 for different host species), but the residual variation only weakly correlated with observed patterns of trematode parasite over-dispersion. Correspondingly, experimental manipulation of host clustering had no effects on parasite infection success or the degree of parasite aggregation among cages or mesocosms. Given the importance of parasite over-dispersion for host populations and disease dynamics, we advocate for further investigations of host and parasite spatial aggregation, particularly studies that incorporate and/or control for heterogeneity in exposure and susceptibility.
Data from: Covariation between the physiological and behavioral components of pathogen transmission: host heterogeneity determines epidemic outcomes
Although heterogeneity in contact rate, physiology, and behavioral response to infection have all been empirically demonstrated in host–pathogen systems, little is known about how interactions between individual variation in behavior and physiology scale-up to affect pathogen transmission at a population level. The objective of this study is to evaluate how covariation between the behavioral and physiological components of transmission might affect epidemic outcomes in host populations. We tested the consequences of contact rate covarying with susceptibility, infectiousness, and infection status using an individual-based, dynamic network model where individuals initiate and terminate contacts with conspecifics based on their behavioral predispositions and their infection status. Our results suggest that both heterogeneity in physiology and subsequent covariation of physiology with contact rate could powerfully influence epidemic dynamics. Overall, we found that 1) individual variability in susceptibility and infectiousness can reduce the expected maximum prevalence and increase epidemic variability; 2) when contact rate and susceptibility or infectiousness negatively covary, it takes substantially longer for epidemics to spread throughout the population, and rates of epidemic spread remained suppressed even for highly transmissible pathogens; and 3) reductions in contact rate resulting from infection-induced behavioral changes can prevent the pathogen from reaching most of the population. These effects were strongest for theoretical pathogens with lower transmissibility and for populations where the observed variation in contact rate was higher, suggesting that such heterogeneity may be most important for less infectious, more chronic diseases in wildlife. Understanding when and how variability in pathogen transmission should be modelled is a crucial next step for disease ecology.
Data from: Covariation between the physiological and behavioral components of pathogen transmission: host heterogeneity determines epidemic outcomes
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Data from: Modelling the dispersal of the two main hosts of the raccoon rabies variant in heterogeneous environments with landscape genetics
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Data from: Whether larval amphibians school does not affect the parasite aggregation rule: testing the effects of host spatial heterogeneity in field and experimental studies
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Data from: Spatial heterogeneity lowers rather than increases host-parasite specialization
Abiotic environmental heterogeneity can promote the evolution of diverse resource specialists, which in turn may increase the degree of host-parasite specialization. We coevolved Pseudomonas fluorescens and lytic phage ϕ2 in spatially structured populations, each consisting of two interconnected subpopulations evolving in the same or different nutrient media (homogeneous and heterogeneous environments, respectively). Counter to the normal expectation, host-parasite specialization was significantly lower in heterogeneous compared with homogeneous environments. This result could not be explained by dispersal homogenizing populations, as this would have resulted in the heterogeneous treatments having levels of specialization equal to or greater than that of the homogeneous environments. We argue that selection for costly generalists is greatest when the coevolving species are exposed to diverse environmental conditions and that this can provide an explanation for our results. A simple coevolutionary model of this process suggests that this can be a general mechanism by which environmental heterogeneity can reduce rather than increase host-parasite specialization.
Data from: Evolution of virulence in heterogeneous host communities under multiple trade-offs
Many pathogens and parasites are transmitted through hosts that differ in species, sex, genotype, or immune status. In addition, virulence (here defined as disease-induced mortality) and transmission can vary during the infectious period within hosts of different state. Most models of virulence evolution assume that transmission and virulence are constant over the infectious period and that the host population is homogenous. Here, we examine a multi-species SIR model where transmission occurs within and between species, and transmission and virulence varied during the infectious period. This allows us to understand virulence evolution in a broader range of situations that characterize many emerging diseases. Because emerging pathogens are by definition new to their host populations, they should be expected to rapidly adapt after emergence. We illustrate these evolutionary effects using the framework of adaptive dynamics to examine how virulence evolves after emergence in response to the relative strength of selection on pathogen fitness and mutational variance for virulence. We illustrate the role of evolution by simulating adaptive walks to an evolutionarily stable virulence. We found that the magnitude of between-species transmission and the relative timing of transmission and mortality across species were of primary importance for determining the evolutionarily stable virulence.
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.