Disease dynamics are governed by variation of individuals, species, and environmental conditions across space and time. In some cases, an alternate reservoir host amplifies pathogen loads and drives disease transmission to less competent hosts in a process called pathogen spillover. Spillover is frequently associated with multi‐host disease systems where a single species is more tolerant of infection and more competent in pathogen transmission compared to other hosts. Pathogen spillover must be driven by biotic factors, including host and community characteristics, yet biotic factors interact with the abiotic environment (e.g., temperature) to create disease. Despite its fundamental role in disease dynamics, the influence of the abiotic environment on pathogen spillover has seldom been examined. Improving our understanding of disease processes such as pathogen spillover hinges on disentangling the effects of interrelated biotic and abiotic factors over space and time. We applied 10 yr of fine‐scale microclimate, disease, and tree community data in a path analysis to investigate the relative influence of biotic and abiotic factors on pathogen spillover for the emerging infectious forest disease sudden oak death (
Forest pathogens are important drivers of tree mortality across the globe, but it is exceptionally challenging to gather and build unbiased quantitative models of their impacts. Here we harness the rare data set matching the spatial scale of pathogen invasion, host, and disease heterogeneity to estimate infection and mortality for the four most susceptible host species of
- PAR ID:
- 10456671
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Earth's Future
- Volume:
- 8
- Issue:
- 7
- ISSN:
- 2328-4277
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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