From individual behaviour to population-level transmission: bridging disease ecology scales with the amphibian pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis

Many important pathogens circulate within multi-host communities. As part of an on-going project, we are examining the host species driving pathogen spread, based on easily-collected population-level data (host abundance, prevalence and infectiousness). However, these population-level patterns arise from individual-level process (e.g., social behaviour, movement and habitat preference). This CASE studentship will seek to conduct experiments and analysis into individual-level behavoural processes that drive transmission, using a pathogen of major conservation concern: the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) infecting amphibian communities.

Bd causes global amphibian declines and extinctions, and is a major focus of conservation organisations worldwide, including our CASE Partner, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). Our current project is collecting data on ~7 amphibian species at the index site for Bd emergence in Europe, Penalara National Park in Spain, and this studentship will run in parallel to that project, conducting mesocosm experiments to ascertain which behaviours (e.g., grouping, foraging, dispersal, aggression, predation) underlie transmission within and between species across the host community.

The student will:
1) conduct mesocosm experiments of artificial amphibian communities to identify which species-to-species and individual-to-individual interactions drive pathogen transmission.
2) pair these experiments with analyses of field data to understand how behaviour-modified contact rates influence transmission rates in the field.
3) combine these results into a predictive framework to understand how individual-level behaviours inflence disease transmission in natural ecological communities.

This project will suit students interested in applied disease management, ideally with interests in both field and lab work. The student will work with ecologists and conservation biologists at the Universities of Liverpool and Cambridge, the Institute of Zoology and ZSL/London Zoo. Through this they will receive training in conceptual, quantitative and empirical aspects of host-parasite biology, while being exposed to a wide-ranging research environment working on the ecology and management of infectious diseases.