Evolution of behavioral resistance in host-pathogen systems

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline R. Amoroso ◽  
Janis Antonovics
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Mixed Strategies ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Parasite Resistance ◽  
Costs Of Disease ◽  
Physiological Resistance ◽  
Behavioral Resistance

AbstractBehavioral resistance to parasites is widespread in animals, yet little is known about the evolutionary dynamics that have shaped these strategies. We show that theory developed for the evolution of physiological parasite resistance can only be applied to behavioral resistance under limited circumstances. We find that accounting explicitly for the behavioral processes, including the detectability of infected individuals, leads to novel dynamics that are strongly dependent on the nature of the costs and benefits of social interactions. As with physiological resistance, the evolutionary dynamics can also lead to mixed strategies that balance the costs of disease risk and the benefits of social interaction, with implications for understanding avoidance strategies in human disease outbreaks.

scholarly journals Evolution of behavioural resistance in host–pathogen systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 20200508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline R. Amoroso ◽  
Janis Antonovics
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Mixed Strategies ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Parasite Resistance ◽  
Host Pathogen ◽  
Behavioural Resistance ◽  
Physiological Resistance

Behavioural resistance to parasites is widespread in animals, yet little is known about the evolutionary dynamics that have shaped these strategies. We show that theory developed for the evolution of physiological parasite resistance can only be applied to behavioural resistance under limited circumstances. We find that accounting explicitly for the behavioural processes, including the detectability of infected individuals, leads to novel dynamics that are strongly dependent on the nature of the costs and benefits of social interactions. As with physiological resistance, evolutionary dynamics of behavioural resistance can also lead to mixed strategies that balance these costs and benefits.

scholarly journals Integrating Concepts of Physiological and Behavioral Resistance to Parasites

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline R. Amoroso
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Parasite Transmission ◽  
Behavioral Immune System ◽  
Incubation Periods ◽  
Physiological Resistance ◽  
Behavioral Resistance

Conceptual parallels between physiological and behavioral forms of resistance to parasites have led to the development of terminology like “the behavioral immune system” to refer to behaviors that combat parasites. I extend this metaphor by applying findings from research on physiological resistance to generate predictions for the ecology and evolution of behavioral resistance (here, synonymous with avoidance). In certain cases, behavioral resistance may follow similar evolutionary dynamics to physiological resistance. However, more research on the nature of the costs of behavioral resistance is needed, including how parasite transmission mode may be a key determinant of these costs. In addition, “acquiring” behavioral resistance may require specific mechanisms separate from classical forms of conditioning, due to constraints on timing of host learning processes and parasite incubation periods. Given existing literature, behavioral resistance to infectious disease seems more likely to be innate than acquired within the lifetime of an individual, raising new questions about how individual experience could shape anti-parasite behaviors. This review provides a framework for using existing literature on physiological resistance to generate predictions for behavioral resistance, and highlights several important directions for future research based on this comparison.

scholarly journals Evolutionary Dynamics of Time-Resolved Social Interactions

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessio Cardillo ◽  
Giovanni Petri ◽  
Vincenzo Nicosia ◽  
Roberta Sinatra ◽  
Jesus Gomez-Gardenes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Time Resolved

scholarly journals Host size and proximity to diseased neighbours drive the spread of a coral disease outbreak in Hawai‘i

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1870) ◽  
pp. 20172265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie M. Caldwell ◽  
Megan J. Donahue ◽  
C. Drew Harvell
Keyword(s):  
Disease Risk ◽  
Coral Disease ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Disease Outbreak ◽  
Host Size ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
Wildlife Diseases ◽  
Infectious Individual ◽  
Force Of Infection ◽  
Affected Tissue

Understanding how disease risk varies over time and across heterogeneous populations is critical for managing disease outbreaks, but this information is rarely known for wildlife diseases. Here, we demonstrate that variation in host and pathogen factors drive the direction, duration and intensity of a coral disease outbreak. We collected longitudinal health data for 200 coral colonies, and found that disease risk increased with host size and severity of diseased neighbours, and disease spread was highest among individuals between 5 and 20 m apart. Disease risk increased by 2% with every 10 cm increase in host size. Healthy colonies with severely diseased neighbours (greater than 75% affected tissue) were 1.6 times more likely to develop disease signs compared with colonies with moderately diseased neighbours (25–75% affected tissue). Force of infection ranged from 7 to 20 disease cases per 1000 colonies (mean = 15 cases per 1000 colonies). The effective reproductive ratio, or average number of secondary infections per infectious individual, ranged from 0.16 to 1.22. Probability of transmission depended strongly on proximity to diseased neighbours, which demonstrates that marine disease spread can be highly constrained within patch reefs.

Computational framework for evaluating risk trade-offs in costs associated with Legionnaires’ Disease risk, energy, and scalding risk for hospital hot water systems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Heida ◽  
Alexis Mraz ◽  
Mark Hamilton ◽  
Mark Weir ◽  
Kerry A Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Legionella Pneumophila ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Febrile Illness ◽  
Water Systems ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Computational Framework ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Pontiac Fever ◽  
Legionnaires Disease

Legionella pneumophila are bacteria that when inhaled cause Legionnaires’ Disease (LD) and febrile illness Pontiac Fever. As of 2014, LD is the most frequent cause of waterborne disease outbreaks due...

scholarly journals Using Game Theory for Los Angeles Airport Security

AI Magazine ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Pita ◽  
Manish Jain ◽  
Fernando Ordóñez ◽  
Christopher Portway ◽  
Milind Tambe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Stackelberg Game ◽  
Information Design ◽  
Airport Security ◽  
Stackelberg Games ◽  
Mixed Strategies ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Mixed Initiative ◽  
Airport Terminals

Security at major locations of economic or political importance is a key concern around the world, particularly given the threat of terrorism. Limited security resources prevent full security coverage at all times, which allows adversaries to observe and exploit patterns in selective patrolling or monitoring, e.g. they can plan an attack avoiding existing patrols. Hence, randomized patrolling or monitoring is important, but randomization must provide distinct weights to different actions based on their complex costs and benefits. To this end, this paper describes a promising transition of the latest in multi-agent algorithms into a deployed application. In particular, it describes a software assistant agent called ARMOR (Assistant for Randomized Monitoring over Routes) that casts this patrolling/monitoring problem as a Bayesian Stackelberg game, allowing the agent to appropriately weigh the different actions in randomization, as well as uncertainty over adversary types. ARMOR combines two key features: (i) It uses the fastest known solver for Bayesian Stackelberg games called DOBSS, where the dominant mixed strategies enable randomization; (ii) Its mixed-initiative based interface allows users to occasionally adjust or override the automated schedule based on their local constraints. ARMOR has been successfully deployed since August 2007 at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to randomize checkpoints on the roadways entering the airport and canine patrol routes within the airport terminals. This paper examines the information, design choices, challenges, and evaluation that went into designing ARMOR.

Determining Mosquito Distribution from Egg Data: The Role of the Citizen Scientist

2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 317-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee W. Cohnstaedt ◽  
Jamie Ladner ◽  
Leslie Rickert Campbell ◽  
Noah Busch ◽  
Roberto Barrera
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
Health Risks ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Lesson Plan ◽  
Mosquito Species ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Real Data ◽  
Distribution Data ◽  
Distribution Study ◽  
Advanced Placement Classes

Nationwide science classes, from elementary through secondary, are placing a larger emphasis on inquiry and authentic experiences. The opportunity for community members (students, teachers, or interested individuals) to collect real data and contribute to a research project is the definition of citizen science. Recent disease outbreaks of mosquito-transmitted pathogens (West Nile, eastern equine encephalitis, dengue, chikungunya, and Zika) demonstrate the need to educate children and adults about the public health risks posed by mosquitoes. This lesson plan has students determine mosquito species and subsequent disease risk around their house and in their community by collecting mosquito eggs and rearing a portion of them to adults. The students identify adult mosquitoes and associated health risks. Furthermore, students and teachers have the option to participate in a national mosquito-species-distribution study by submitting mosquito eggs and adults to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The data generated by participant submissions will be available to all mosquito submitters, making each student and school part of a larger project. This lesson plan has three objectives beyond the citizen science experience: (1) clarify the individual's role in protecting individuals, communities, and pets from illness; (2) raise awareness of pathogens transmitted by mosquitoes; and (3) participate in a national program to gather mosquito distribution data. The lesson and the associated supplementary material (available at http://www.citizenscience.us) can be used for middle to high school classes, as well as Advanced Placement classes, because the materials and presentations can be easily modified to classroom needs.

scholarly journals Funding the Costs of Disease Outbreaks Caused by Non-Vaccination

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 633-647
Author(s):  
Charlotte A. Moser ◽  
Dorit Reiss ◽  
Robert L. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Financial Costs ◽  
Costs Of Disease

Preventable diseases not only cause suffering and physical harm, they also impose financial costs on private individuals and public authorities. By disregarding evidence of the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and choosing not to vaccinate their children, some parents are increasing the risk of outbreaks and their attendant costs. In a very real sense, since those families are not currently required to cover the full costs of outbreaks, they are externalizing those costs onto others – individuals affected and society at large. Since non-vaccinating can directly lead to costly outbreaks, this paper argues that it is both fair and desirable to impose those costs upon those making the choice not to vaccinate. There are, in fact, strong policy reasons to support doing so regardless of whether we use an approach based on fault or a no-fault framework. Not only can the decision not to vaccinate be seen as culpable, aside from the culpability consideration, it is appropriate to compel those deciding not to vaccinate to internalize the costs in order to prevent free riding and to mitigate harms to others.

scholarly journals M1CR0B1AL1Z3R—a user-friendly web server for the analysis of large-scale microbial genomics data

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (W1) ◽  
pp. W88-W92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oren Avram ◽  
Dana Rapoport ◽  
Shir Portugez ◽  
Tal Pupko
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Gene Annotation ◽  
Gc Content ◽  
Web Server ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Open Reading Frames ◽  
Microbial Genomics ◽  
Bacterial Strains

Abstract Large-scale mining and analysis of bacterial datasets contribute to the comprehensive characterization of complex microbial dynamics within a microbiome and among different bacterial strains, e.g., during disease outbreaks. The study of large-scale bacterial evolutionary dynamics poses many challenges. These include data-mining steps, such as gene annotation, ortholog detection, sequence alignment and phylogeny reconstruction. These steps require the use of multiple bioinformatics tools and ad-hoc programming scripts, making the entire process cumbersome, tedious and error-prone due to manual handling. This motivated us to develop the M1CR0B1AL1Z3R web server, a ‘one-stop shop’ for conducting microbial genomics data analyses via a simple graphical user interface. Some of the features implemented in M1CR0B1AL1Z3R are: (i) extracting putative open reading frames and comparative genomics analysis of gene content; (ii) extracting orthologous sets and analyzing their size distribution; (iii) analyzing gene presence–absence patterns; (iv) reconstructing a phylogenetic tree based on the extracted orthologous set; (v) inferring GC-content variation among lineages. M1CR0B1AL1Z3R facilitates the mining and analysis of dozens of bacterial genomes using advanced techniques, with the click of a button. M1CR0B1AL1Z3R is freely available at https://microbializer.tau.ac.il/.

scholarly journals A field demonstration of the costs and benefits of group living to edible and defended prey

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 20150152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward A. M. Curley ◽  
Hannah E. Rowley ◽  
Michael P. Speed
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Laboratory Research ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Predator Satiation ◽  
Chemical Defences ◽  
Behavioural Biology ◽  
Wild Predators ◽  
First Time

Both theoretical and laboratory research suggests that many prey animals should live in a solitary, dispersed distribution unless they lack repellent defences such as toxins, venoms and stings. Chemically defended prey may, by contrast, benefit substantially from aggregation because spatial localization may cause rapid predator satiation on prey toxins, protecting many individuals from attack. If repellent defences promote aggregation of prey, they also provide opportunities for new social interactions; hence the consequences of defence may be far reaching for the behavioural biology of the animal species. There is an absence of field data to support predictions about the relative costs and benefits of aggregation. We show here for the first time using wild predators that edible, undefended artificial prey do indeed suffer heightened death rates if they are aggregated; whereas chemically defended prey may benefit substantially by grouping. We argue that since many chemical defences are costly to prey, aggregation may be favoured because it makes expensive defences much more effective, and perhaps allows grouped individuals to invest less in chemical defences.

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