Community ecology of infectious disease pathogens

Hosted by Dr. Kayla King

The human population presents a unique ecosystem for studying pathogen communities, with anthropogenic activities like COVID-19 lockdowns serving as large-scale natural experiments. In this talk, I begin by exploring how host immune response facilitate the invasion and persistence of novel pathogen strains and illustrating the potential for future emergence across major human pathogens. Then, I show that varied impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns on respiratory pathogens can be explained by changes in susceptible hosts. Finally, I present a case study, illustrating how subtle changes in population-level susceptibility, driven by an expansion of childcare facilities in Japan, translates to complex outbreak dynamics.