Ecological change and the dynamics of zoonotic disease

我们知道，不断变化的生态可以改变疾病系统的平衡，但为什么一些系统比其他系统更容易受到变化的影响？是什么影响了生态扰动对疾病动态的影响程度，以及由此导致的变化不可逆转的可能性？尽管将生态变化与疾病系统的根本变化联系起来的证据越来越多，但这一处于生态学和流行病学之间的新兴研究领域缺乏坚实的理论基础，无法对生态变化对疾病动态的影响进行量化、建模和跨系统比较。如果我们想要：1)找出特别容易受到生态变化影响的疾病系统，2)找出这些系统的哪些方面对疾病系统动态变化的贡献不成比例，3)制定战略和政策，以减轻变化对人类和动物健康的负面影响(减少危害)，或者反过来，促进带来积极结果的变化(促进健康)，那么填补这一认识空白是至关重要的。我建议开发和测试一个新的量化框架--生态变化和传染病(ECID)管道--一种评估疾病系统复原力和预测生态变化对疾病动态影响的灵活方法。恢复力是指承受干扰或在受到影响后迅速恢复的能力，这一概念在工程学和生态学方面都有丰富的研究历史，但在流行病学中的应用有限。ECID管道弥合了这一概念鸿沟，将所有三个领域的分析方法联系起来，以确定生态变化的具体脆弱性，并评估它们对疾病系统复原力的综合影响。虽然ECID管道的许多组成部分在各自的领域已经存在了一段时间，但将各学科连接起来创建必要的框架，以严格评估生态变化对疾病系统动力学的影响，这是一项重大的跨学科创新，可能会影响每个连接领域的未来研究方向。这一特定主题对于迅速崛起的“一个健康”(动物、人类和生态系统健康之间的接口)研究领域至关重要，它为测试涉及复杂疾病系统的“一个健康”问题提供了一个亟需的量化框架。

We know that changing ecology can shift the balance of disease systems but why are some systems more vulnerable to change than others? What influences the magnitude of impact an ecological perturbation has on disease dynamics, and the probability that resulting changes are irreversible? Despite the accumulation of evidence linking ecological change to fundamental shifts in disease systems, this emerging research area at the interface between Ecology and Epidemiology lacks a solid theoretical foundation allowing the impacts of ecological change on disease dynamics to be quantified, modelled and compared across systems. Filling this knowledge gap is essential if we want to: 1) identify disease systems that are particularly vulnerable to ecological change, 2) pinpoint which aspects of these systems contribute disproportionately to changes in disease system dynamics and 3) develop strategies and policies to mitigate the negative effects of change for human and animal health (harm reduction) or, conversely, facilitate changes that lead to positive outcomes (health promotion). I propose to develop and test a new quantitative framework - the Ecological Change and Infectious Disease (ECID) pipeline - a nimble approach for assessing disease system resilience and predicting of the impacts of ecological change on disease dynamics. Resilience is the capacity to withstand a perturbation or recover quickly after an impact, a concept with a rich research history in both Engineering and Ecology but with limited application in Epidemiology. The ECID pipeline bridges this conceptual gap, linking analytical approaches from all three fields to identify specific vulnerabilities to ecological change and assess their combined impact on disease system resilience. While many components of the ECID pipeline have existed for some time in their respective fields, connecting disciplines to create the necessary framework for rigorously evaluating the impacts of ecological change on disease system dynamics represents a major interdisciplinary innovation likely to influence future research directions in each connected field. This specific theme is central to the rapidly emerging research area of One Health (the interface between animal, human and ecosystem health), providing a much-needed quantitative framework for testing One Health questions involving complex disease systems.