Diverging effects of host density and richness across biological scales drive diversity-disease outcomes


Johnson, Pieter TJ, Stewart Merrill, Tara E, Dean, Andrew D ORCID: 0000-0001-9033-7560 and Fenton, Andy ORCID: 0000-0002-7676-917X (2024) Diverging effects of host density and richness across biological scales drive diversity-disease outcomes. Nature Communications, 15 (1). 1937-.

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Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Understanding how biodiversity affects pathogen transmission remains an unresolved question due to the challenges in testing potential mechanisms in natural systems and how these mechanisms vary across biological scales. By quantifying transmission of an entire guild of parasites (larval trematodes) within 902 amphibian host communities, we show that the community-level drivers of infection depend critically on biological scale. At the individual host scale, increases in host richness led to fewer parasites per host for all parasite taxa, with no effect of host or predator densities. At the host community scale, however, the inhibitory effects of richness were counteracted by associated increases in total host density, leading to no overall change in parasite densities. Mechanistically, we find that while average host competence declined with increasing host richness, total community competence remained stable due to additive assembly patterns. These results help reconcile disease-diversity debates by empirically disentangling the roles of alternative ecological drivers of parasite transmission and how such effects depend on biological scale.</jats:p>

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Animals, Trematoda, Parasites, Biodiversity, Larva, Host-Parasite Interactions, Amphibians
Divisions: Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 05 Mar 2024 08:27
Last Modified: 15 Mar 2024 17:37
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46091-4
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3179129
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