Functional landscape connectivity and the dynamics of parasite invasion

越来越多的证据表明，寄生生物向新地区的传播受到其宿主行为和这些宿主生活的景观特征的强烈影响。然而，准确地表示精细规模的行为过程中的人口规模的入侵模型仍然是一个重大挑战。功能景观连接，运动潜力的生物在景观中产生的行为反应景观结构，提供了一个有用的概念之间的联系行为过程和入侵模式。在接下来的五年里，我将专注于宿主行为在寄生虫入侵中的作用，探索在加拿大莱姆病出现的背景下寄生虫的功能景观连接的概念。 通过实地研究和建模相结合，我将开发这个概念框架，通过三个研究轴：1）主机行为和景观结构相互作用，以推动寄生虫入侵的机制，2）在景观尺度上寄生虫入侵的主机生物多样性的影响和3）在大陆尺度上寄生虫入侵的主机迁移的影响。该研究计划将建立新的概念和方法，将寄生虫入侵过程与宿主空间生态学联系起来。这种整合将为预测现有寄生虫随着气候变化的范围扩大以及预测新出现疾病的传播和影响提供新的见解。

There is increasing evidence that the spread of parasitic organisms into new regions is strongly affected by both the behaviour of their hosts and the characteristics of landscape in which those hosts live. However, accurately representing fine-scale behavioural processes within population-scale models of invasion remains a major challenge. Functional landscape connectivity, the movement potential of organisms across a landscape resulting from their behavioural responses to landscape structure, provides a useful conceptual link between behavioural processes and patterns of invasion. Over the next five years, I will focus on the role of host behaviour in parasite invasion, exploring the concept of functional landscape connectivity for parasites in the context of Lyme disease emergence in Canada. Through a combination of field studies and modelling, I will develop this conceptual framework via three research axes: 1) the mechanisms by which host behaviour and landscape structure interact to drive parasite invasion, 2) the impact of host biodiversity on parasite invasion at the landscape scale and 3) the impact of host migration on parasite invasion at the continental scale. This research program will establish new concepts and methods for linking the process of parasite invasion with host spatial ecology. This integration will provide novel insight for forecasting the range expansion of existing parasites with climate change, and for predicting the spread and impact of emerging diseases.