ORCID Profile
0000-0001-5333-8513
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In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Biological Mathematics | Simulation and Modelling | Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing
Ecosystem Adaptation to Climate Change | Expanding Knowledge in the Biological Sciences |
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-09-2019
DOI: 10.1002/ECE3.5584
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 06-03-2013
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 12-06-2021
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-590207/V1
Abstract: Hunting can fundamentally alter wildlife population dynamics, but the consequences of hunting on pathogen transmission and evolution remain poorly understood. Here we present a study that leverages a unique landscape-scale experiment coupled with pathogen transmission tracing, network simulation and phylodynamics to provide insights into how hunting shapes viral dynamics in puma ( Puma concolor ). We show that removing hunting pressure enhances the role of males in transmission, increases the viral population growth rate and the role of evolutionary forces on the pathogen compared to when hunting was reinstated. Changes in transmission could be linked to short term social changes while the male population increased. These findings are supported through comparison with a region with stable hunting management over the same time period. This study shows that routine wildlife management can have impacts on pathogen transmission and evolution not previously considered.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 09-01-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.01.09.426055
Abstract: Identifying drivers of transmission prior to an epidemic—especially of an emerging pathogen—is a formidable challenge for proactive disease management efforts. We tested a novel approach in the Florida panther, hypothesizing that apathogenic feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) transmission could predict transmission dynamics for pathogenic feline leukemia virus (FeLV). We derived a transmission network using FIV whole genome sequences, and used exponential random graph models to determine drivers structuring this network. We used these drivers to predict FeLV transmission pathways among panthers and compared predicted outbreak dynamics against empirical FeLV outbreak data. FIV transmission was primarily driven by panther age class and distances between panther home range centroids. Prospective FIV-based modeling predicted FeLV dynamics at least as well as simpler, often retrospective approaches, with evidence that FIV-based predictions captured the spatial structuring of the observed FeLV outbreak. Our finding that an apathogenic agent can predict transmission of an analogously transmitted pathogen is an innovative approach that warrants testing in other host-pathogen systems to determine generalizability. Use of such apathogenic agents holds promise for improving predictions of pathogen transmission in novel host populations, and could thereby provide new strategies for proactive pathogen management in human and animal systems.
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 20-03-2023
Abstract: Ongoing environmental changes alter how natural selection shapes animal migration. Understanding how these changes play out theoretically can be done using evolutionary game theoretic (EGT) approaches, such as looking for evolutionarily stable strategies. Here, we first describe historical patterns of how EGT models have explored different drivers of migration. We find that there are substantial gaps in both the taxa (mammals, hibians, reptiles, insects) and mechanisms (mutualism, interspecific competition) included in past EGT models of migration. Although enemy interactions, including parasites, are increasingly considered in models of animal migration, they remain the least studied of factors for migration considered to date. Furthermore, few papers look at changes in migration in response to perturbations (e.g. climate change, new species interactions). To address this gap, we present a new EGT model to understand how infection with a novel parasite changes host migration. We find three possible outcomes when migrants encounter novel parasites: maintenance of migration (despite the added infection cost), loss of migration (evolutionary shift to residency) or population collapse, depending on the risk and cost of getting infected, and the cost currency. Our work demonstrates how emerging infection can alter animal behaviour such as migration. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Half a century of evolutionary games: a synthesis of theory, application and future directions’.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 19-08-2019
Abstract: Predicting infectious disease dynamics is a central challenge in disease ecology. Models that can assess which in iduals are most at risk of being exposed to a pathogen not only provide valuable insights into disease transmission and dynamics but can also guide management interventions. Constructing such models for wild animal populations, however, is particularly challenging often only serological data are available on a subset of in iduals and nonlinear relationships between variables are common. Here we provide a guide to the latest advances in statistical machine learning to construct pathogen-risk models that automatically incorporate complex nonlinear relationships with minimal statistical assumptions from ecological data with missing data. Our approach compares multiple machine learning algorithms in a unified environment to find the model with the best predictive performance and uses game theory to better interpret results. We apply this framework on two major pathogens that infect African lions: canine distemper virus (CDV) and feline parvovirus. Our modelling approach provided enhanced predictive performance compared to more traditional approaches, as well as new insights into disease risks in a wild population. We were able to efficiently capture and visualize strong nonlinear patterns, as well as model complex interactions between variables in shaping exposure risk from CDV and feline parvovirus. For ex le, we found that lions were more likely to be exposed to CDV at a young age but only in low rainfall years. When combined with our data calibration approach, our framework helped us to answer questions about risk of pathogen exposure that are difficult to address with previous methods. Our framework not only has the potential to aid in predicting disease risk in animal populations, but also can be used to build robust predictive models suitable for other ecological applications such as modelling species distribution or ersity patterns.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-11-2017
DOI: 10.1111/BRV.12380
Abstract: Identifying patterns and drivers of infectious disease dynamics across multiple scales is a fundamental challenge for modern science. There is growing awareness that it is necessary to incorporate multi-host and/or multi-parasite interactions to understand and predict current and future disease threats better, and new tools are needed to help address this task. Eco-phylogenetics (phylogenetic community ecology) provides one avenue for exploring multi-host multi-parasite systems, yet the incorporation of eco-phylogenetic concepts and methods into studies of host pathogen dynamics has lagged behind. Eco-phylogenetics is a transformative approach that uses evolutionary history to infer present-day dynamics. Here, we present an eco-phylogenetic framework to reveal insights into parasite communities and infectious disease dynamics across spatial and temporal scales. We illustrate how eco-phylogenetic methods can help untangle the mechanisms of host-parasite dynamics from in idual (e.g. co-infection) to landscape scales (e.g. parasite/host community structure). An improved ecological understanding of multi-host and multi-pathogen dynamics across scales will increase our ability to predict disease threats.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-01-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-021-01635-5
Abstract: Hunting can fundamentally alter wildlife population dynamics but the consequences of hunting on pathogen transmission and evolution remain poorly understood. Here, we present a study that leverages a unique landscape-scale quasi-experiment coupled with pathogen-transmission tracing, network simulation and phylodynamics to provide insights into how hunting shapes feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) dynamics in puma (Puma concolor). We show that removing hunting pressure enhances the role of males in transmission, increases the viral population growth rate and increases the role of evolutionary forces on the pathogen compared to when hunting was reinstated. Changes in transmission observed with the removal of hunting could be linked to short-term social changes while the male puma population increased. These findings are supported through comparison with a region with stable hunting management over the same time period. This study shows that routine wildlife management can have impacts on pathogen transmission and evolution not previously considered.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 30-01-2022
DOI: 10.1111/BRV.12835
Abstract: Animal migration (round‐trip, predictable movements) takes in iduals across space and time, bringing them into contact with new communities of organisms. In particular, migratory movements shape (and are shaped by) the costs and risk of parasite transmission. Unfortunately, our understanding of how migration and parasite infection interact has not proceeded evenly. Although numerous conceptual frameworks (e.g. mathematical models) have been developed, most empirical evidence of migration–parasite interactions are drawn from pre‐existing empirical studies that were conducted using other conceptual frameworks, which limits our understanding. Here, we synthesise and analyse existing work, and then provide a roadmap for future (especially empirical) studies. First, we synthesise the conceptual frameworks that have been developed to understand interactions between migration and parasites (e.g. migratory exposure, escape, allopatry, recovery, culling, separation, stalling and relapse). Second, we highlight current challenges to studying migration and parasites empirically, and to integrating empirical and theoretical perspectives, particularly emphasizing the challenge of feedback loops. Finally, we provide a guide to overcoming these challenges in empirical studies, using comparative, observational and experimental approaches. Beyond guiding future empirical work, this review aims to inspire stronger collaboration between empiricists and theorists studying the intersection of migration and parasite infection. Such collaboration will help overcome current limits to our understanding of how migration and parasites interact, and allow us to predict how these critical ecological processes will change in the future.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-07-2019
Abstract: Most studies on the evolution of migration focus on food, mates and/or climate as factors influencing these movements, whereas negative species interactions such as predators, parasites and pathogens are often ignored. Although infection and its associated costs clearly have the potential to influence migration, thoroughly studying these interactions is challenging without a solid theoretical framework from which to develop testable predictions in natural systems. Here, we aim to understand when parasites favour the evolution of migration. We develop a general model which enables us to explore a broad range of biological conditions and to capture population and infection dynamics over both ecological and evolutionary time-scales. We show that when migration evolves depends on whether the costs of migration and infection are paid in reduced fecundity or survival. Also important are the parasite transmission mode and spatiotemporal dynamics of infection and recovery (if it occurs). Finally, we find that partial migration (where only a fraction of the population migrates) can evolve but only when parasite transmission is density-dependent. Our results highlight the critical, if overlooked, role of parasites in shaping long-distance movement patterns, and suggest that infection should be considered alongside more traditional drivers of migration in both empirical and theoretical studies.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-2017
DOI: 10.1111/MEC.14375
Abstract: Urban expansion has widespread impacts on wildlife species globally, including the transmission and emergence of infectious diseases. However, there is almost no information about how urban landscapes shape transmission dynamics in wildlife. Using an innovative phylodynamic approach combining host and pathogen molecular data with landscape characteristics and host traits, we untangle the complex factors that drive transmission networks of feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) in bobcats (Lynx rufus). We found that the urban landscape played a significant role in shaping FIV transmission. Even though bobcats were often trapped within the urban matrix, FIV transmission events were more likely to occur in areas with more natural habitat elements. Urban fragmentation also resulted in lower rates of pathogen evolution, possibly owing to a narrower range of host genotypes in the fragmented area. Combined, our findings show that urban landscapes can have impacts on a pathogen and its evolution in a carnivore living in one of the most fragmented and urban systems in North America. The analytical approach used here can be broadly applied to other host-pathogen systems, including humans.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-01-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S42003-020-01548-2
Abstract: Urban expansion can fundamentally alter wildlife movement and gene flow, but how urbanization alters pathogen spread is poorly understood. Here, we combine high resolution host and viral genomic data with landscape variables to examine the context of viral spread in puma ( Puma concolor ) from two contrasting regions: one bounded by the wildland urban interface (WUI) and one unbounded with minimal anthropogenic development (UB). We found landscape variables and host gene flow explained significant amounts of variation of feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) spread in the WUI, but not in the unbounded region. The most important predictors of viral spread also differed host spatial proximity, host relatedness, and mountain ranges played a role in FIV spread in the WUI, whereas roads might have facilitated viral spread in the unbounded region. Our research demonstrates how anthropogenic landscapes can alter pathogen spread, providing a more nuanced understanding of host-pathogen relationships to inform disease ecology in free-ranging species.
No related organisations have been discovered for Meggan Craft.
Start Date: 05-2019
End Date: 09-2024
Amount: $397,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity