University of Michigan
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Andrew Park, Assistant Professor, Odum School of Ecology, Department of Infectious Diseases, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia

Abstract
The “more transmission = more disease” paradigm is rightly a central concept in infectious disease science. However, there are mechanisms that can lead to more complicated relationships. Hemorrhagic disease in white-tailed deer (caused by a virus vectored by biting midges) displays evidence suggesting the parasite is most active (even maintained in a source-sink sense) in regions with little, or no disease. I will lay out the case for complex and cryptic transmission using surveillance data, seroprevalence studies, statistical and mechanistic models and sequence-based phylogeography. In addition to reflecting on the power of interdisciplinary science to shed light on disease ecology, I will review the potential for similar processes to operate widely in a range of disease systems along with the challenge that cryptic refuges for parasites brings regarding surveillance, intervention and inference.

Host: EEB postdoctoral fellows, Drs. Sourya Shrestha and Julie Blackwood

Coffee and cookies will be served at 4 p.m.