Meeting Abstract
Why are some populations more or less susceptible to disease? Populations may experience greater stress and impaired immunity at their geographic range limits and in areas subject to abiotic or biotic stressors. Identifying environmental correlates of immunity could help to anticipate disease risks, but achieving this goal has been limited by a lack of studies measuring immunity across the range of broadly distributed species. We present a case study for landscape immunology where we analyze leukocyte profiles from 39 colonies of vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) throughout the Neotropics. Leukocyte profiles showed high spatial variation, with proportions of neutrophils and lymphocytes varying up to six-fold. Leukocyte profiles were spatially autocorrelated at small and vary large distances, suggesting that local environment and biogeography can both influence constitutive immunity. Vampire bats from relatively colder, drier, and more seasonal habitats (characteristic of the northern and southern range limits) had relatively more neutrophils, monocytes, and basophils than bats sampled at core and tropical regions. Our findings suggest colonies at the edge of their range may experience stressful conditions that predict investment in cellular innate immunity and inflammation response. We outline how applying a similar landscape perspective to immunology in other species could help predict emerging disease risks.
