The effect of sterilizing diseases on host abundance and distribution along environmental gradients
Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: This study analyses the effect of host-specific pathogens on range restriction of their hosts across environmental gradients at population margins. Sterilizing diseases can limit host range by causing large reductions in population size in what would otherwise be the central area of a species range. Diseases showing frequency-dependent transmission can also pull back a population from its disease-free margin. A wide range of disease prevalence versus abundance patterns emerge which often differ from the classical expectation of increasing prevalence with increasing abundance. Surprisingly, very few empirical studies have investigated the dynamics of disease across environmental gradients or at range limits.
Author: Janis Antonovics
Institution: University of Virginia
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2167058664