Meeting Abstract
Spatial disease ecology is emerging as a new field that requires the integration of complementary approaches to address how the distribution and movements of hosts and parasites may condition the dynamics of their interactions. In this context, migration, the seasonal movement of animals to different zones of their distribution, is assumed to play a key role in the spread of parasites and pathogens. Nevertheless, migration is not the only type of host movement that can influence the spatial dynamics of infectious diseases. Dispersal has attracted attention as another important type of movement. Host dispersal has notably been identified as a key factor for the evolution of host-parasite interactions as it implies gene flow among local host populations and thus a specific potential for coevolution with infectious agents. But not all movements between host populations lead to dispersal per se. Prospecting, i.e. movements targeted at selecting and securing habitat for future breeding, may also play a role in parasite spread. Prospecting movements, studied in detail in certain social species, could result in the dispersal of infectious agents among different host populations without necessarily involving host dispersal. Here, we review how these various types of host movements might influence the circulation of infectious disease agents and discuss methodological approaches that could be used to assess their importance. Overall, we highlight that a detailed consideration of the behavioral and population ecology of hosts and parasites is required to disentangle the relative role of different types of movements for the spread of infectious diseases.
