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 individual (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.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	epidemiology, co-infection, ecological niche modelling, multi-host, multi-parasite, pathogens, phylodynamics, phylogenetic, community ecology, spill-over, transmission
Research Division:	Agricultural, Veterinary and Food Sciences
Research Group:	Veterinary sciences
Research Field:	Veterinary parasitology
Objective Division:	Environmental Management
Objective Group:	Terrestrial systems and management
Objective Field:	Control of pests, diseases and exotic species in terrestrial environments
UTAS Author:	Fountain-Jones, NM (Dr Nicholas Fountain-Jones)
UTAS Author:	Carver, S (Associate Professor Scott Carver)
ID Code:	149595
Year Published:	2017
Web of Science® Times Cited:	42
Deposited By:	Zoology
Deposited On:	2022-04-05
Last Modified:	2022-05-13
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