Biogeography applied to the study of zoonotic diseases
Abstract
Biogeografía aplicada al estudio de las zoonosis. En un estudio sobre la distribución de áreas favorables para el virus del Ébola en la naturaleza se han combinado la modelación de distribuciones y el análisis de tipos de distribución (corotipos). Se comprueba que modelar la distribución del virus en función de los corotipos definidos para los mamíferos en África genera resultados más precisos que modelarla en función de variables ambientales. La biogeografía de los mamíferos parece contribuir significativamente a explicar la distribución del virus del Ébola, si bien la vegetación también podría imponer límites a su distribución.
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PRESENTATION ABSTRACT Exploiting pathogeography of zoonoses for optimising management of endemic and emerging zoonotic diseases Workshop 28 & 29 November 2016 “Biogeography applied to the study of zoonotic diseases” Jesús Olivero Anarte, Universidad de Málaga When the ecology of a pathogen is complex and unresolved, as is the case of the Ebola virus, imposing restrictions to the selection of species considered in a model might under-represent the zoological substrate conditioning the pathogen distribution. We addressed the mapping of favourable areas for the Ebola virus in the wild by combining two biogeographical approaches: SDM and the analysis of mammalian distribution types in (e.g. chorotypes). Mammalian chorotypes in Africa were employed as surrogates of the types of distribution shown by reservoirs, victims and any wildlife species in the virus spillover cycle. We found that a model based on mammalian chorotypes defined the favourable areas for the presence of Ebola virus with higher accuracy than did a model based on environmental variables (i.e. climate, forest type). We concluded that mammalian biogeography contributes significantly to explaining the distribution of Ebola virus in Africa, although vegetation may also underscore clear limits to the presence of the virus. So, a final map of favourable areas according to the information provided by both models was built. Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine