Lecture 18: Disease Ecology Flashcards
Explain Nipah virus (NiV)
An RNA virus carried by fruit bats or pigs from tropical forests.
Symptoms in humans include fever, headaches, and respiratory failure.
Explain Lyme disease
A bacterial infection that are transmitted via deer ticks or white footed mice. Deforestation has influenced the increase of mice populations and elevated transmission in humans.
Explain Malaria
Single-celled protists transmitted to humans via mosquito bites
Explain virulence
The exploitive relationship damages the host due to extreme pathogen activity. As an evolution, pathogens replicate at an intermediate rate. If they’re too slow, transmission stages get lost and if they produce too quickly, they can kill their hosts.
How are pathogens transmitted?
Direct transmission: direct contact between hosts through air, water, soil, and surfaces
Indirect transmission: indirect transfer by airborne or animal vectors
Pathogen transmission: define horizontal transmission
Transmission among individuals of the same generation
Example: influenza
How does a virus replicate?
Virus enters only living cells. Once inside the host, it delivers its genome in order to make new copies of viral proteins and RNA. The proteins and RNA then assemble into a new viral particle and exists the host cell via cell wall.
Pathogen transmission: define vertical transmission
Transmission from mother to offspring
Example: zika, coronavirus
Define compartment methods
Using subpopulations of hosts to understand how to stop the spread of a disease
How do we slow down a disease?
Behavioral change and herd immunity
Explain the herd immunity threshold (H)
Immunity rates determine if the growth rate of pathogen is negative. The minimum percent is the threshold
Explain ‘devil facial tumor”
Cancer in Tasmanian devils that are transmitted through bites
Explain “chronic wasting disease”
Neurological disease due to a misfolded protein commonly found in elk or deer
Explain “sylvatic plague”
Bacterial disease found in prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets - transmitted by fleas
Explain “whirling disease”
Myxosporean parasite that kills juvenile fish and causes fish to swim in a whirling motion, making them vulnerable to predators
