Scientists have devised a method for predicting how rising global temperatures are likely to affect the severity of diseases mediated by parasites. Their method can be applied widely to different host-pathogen combinations and warming scenarios, and should help to identify which infectious diseases will have worsened or diminished effects with rising temperatures.
The proof-of-concept method, which was road-tested using the water flea (Daphnia magna) and its pathogen (Ordospora colligata) as a model system, uses a long-standing biological concept known as the metabolic theory of ecology to predict how a wide range of processes - all of which influence host-parasite dynamics - are affected by temperature.
The scientists, led by William C. Campbell Lecturer in Parasite Biology at Trinity College Dublin, Professor Pepijn Luijckx, and graduate student Devin Kirk from the University of Toronto, have just published their results in leading international journal PLOS Biology (see: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2004608).
Professor Luijckx said: "Rising temperatures due to global warming can alter the proliferation and severity of infectious diseases, and this has broad implications for conservation and food security. It is therefore really important that we understand and identify the diseases that will become more harmful with rising temperatures, with a view to mitigating their impacts."
Read more at Trinity College Dublin
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