Speaker: Dr. Christina Faust, NERC Independent Research Fellow, University of Glasgow
Landscape conversion – involving both conversion of natural habitats into human-dominated landscapes and restoring degraded landscapes - can have a significant impact on pathogen transmission. This is because landscape conversion changes the abundance and diversity of host species, the abiotic environment, and the movement of hosts within and across populations.
This talk will present evidence for linkages between land use, host diversity, and pathogen abundance in Uganda and Scotland. The talk will also give an overview of agent-based mechanistic models that are being developed to predict pathogen response to landscape change. Finally, the talk will give an overview of ongoing host and pathogen genetic and genomic studies to inform spatiotemporal dynamics and elucidates mechanisms underlying transmission in dynamic environments.
The aim of this research is to identify underlying host, parasite, and environmental traits that are important for predicting short-term and long-term responses to land conversion. This information could be used to develop strategies for managing pathogen transmission in changing landscapes.
Free and open to all. Registration required via Eventbrite.
