Land Use Change, Transmission Potential Networks and Disease Spread in Madagascar

人为的土地利用改变了生态群落，这就引出了一个问题：这些变化如何改变传染病的传播，包括对人类的传播？这一问题在马达加斯加等低收入国家尤其重要，因为在这些国家，人畜共患病仍然是公共卫生的主要威胁。这项研究旨在模拟影响疾病传播的生态和社会经济因素，并预测传染性病原体如何从小型哺乳动物和驯养动物传播给人类。这一目标将通过创新和跨学科的领域，实验室和分析方法来实现。生态学家，社会科学家和数学家的团队将整合和模拟来自马达加斯加农村实地的生态和社会经济数据，其中包括一个被原生森林片段，农田和生计农业家村庄包围的保护区。在四个村庄和公园里，研究小组将调查人类土地利用活动如何影响人畜共患病传播的多种假设。为了在全球范围内推广这些发现，研究人员将使用全球哺乳动物寄生虫数据库来调查人类土地利用和网络连接如何影响宿主-寄生虫关系和流行率。该跨学科团队具有独特的优势，可以调查该系统中的传染病传播。通过将多个数据源整合到统一的数学表示中，该团队将研究疾病如何使用多层传播潜力网络（TPN）传播的具体假设。重要的是，他们将测试TPN和疾病传播如何随着人类活动而变化，并确定导致一些人更多地连接到传播网络的社会经济因素。具体而言，该小组将：（一）利用尖端的实地和分析方法，结合代表多种传播模式的传染病数据，查明疾病传播途径;（二）调查人类个体与野生动物和家养动物主题方案网络联系最紧密的社会经济特征;（三）说明人类活动如何产生传染病的切入点。比较分析将使调查结果超出马达加斯加的研究系统。主题方案网络将基于小型哺乳动物的诱捕数据、人和驯养动物的全球定位系统数据以及人的社会网络调查。研究小组将测试这些网络是否能预测多种病原体的感染，包括钩端螺旋体、耶尔森氏菌、巴氏杆菌、立克次体和胃肠道蠕虫。研究小组拥有所有必要的许可证、广泛的实地后勤支持以及关于该地点人类和动物种群的大量试验数据。

Anthropogenic land use alters ecological communities, leading to the question: How do these changes alter infectious disease transmission, including to humans? This question is especially important in low-income countries such as Madagascar, where zoonotic diseases remain major threats to public health. The proposed research aims to model the ecological and socioeconomic factors that influence disease spread and predict how infectious agents spread from small mammals and domesticated animals to people. This goal will be pursued through innovative and interdisciplinary field, laboratory, and analytical approaches. The team of ecologists, social scientists, and a mathematician will integrate and model ecological and socioeconomic data from the field site in rural Madagascar, which includes a protected area surrounded by native forest fragments, agricultural fields, and villages of subsistence agriculturalists. Around four villages and in the park, the team will investigate multiple hypotheses concerning how human land use activities shape zoonotic disease transmission. To extend the findings globally, the researchers will use the Global Mammal Parasite Database to investigate how human land use and network connectivity impact host-parasite relationships and prevalence. The interdisciplinary team is uniquely positioned to investigate infectious disease transmission in this system. By integrating multiple data sources into unified mathematical representations, the team will investigate specific hypotheses for how diseases spread using multilayer transmission potential networks (TPNs). Significantly, they will test how TPNs and disease transmission change with human activities and identify the socioeconomic factors that lead some people to be more connected into transmission networks. Specifically, the team will: (i) identify pathways of disease transmission using cutting-edge field and analytical methods, coupled with infectious disease data representing multiple transmission modes; (ii) investigate socioeconomic characteristics of individual humans that most strongly connect them into TPNs of wildlife and domesticated animals; (iii) characterize how human activities generate entry points of infectious disease. Comparative analyses will extend the findings beyond the Malagasy study system. TPNs will be based on trapping data for small mammals, GPS data for people and domesticated animals, and social network surveys for people. The team will test whether these networks predict infection with multiple pathogens, including Leptospira, Yersinia, Babesia, Rickettsia, and gastrointestinal helminths. The research team has all necessary permits, extensive on-the-ground logistical support, and substantial pilot data on human and animal populations at the site.