title: Identifying the Achilles' heel of multi-host pathogens: The concept of keystone "host" species illustrated byMycobacterium ulceranstransmission.
abstract: Pathogens that use multiple host species are an increasing public health issue due to their complex transmission, which makes them difficult to mitigate. Here, we explore the possibility of using networks of ecological interactions among potential host species to identify the particular disease-source species to target to break down transmission of such pathogens. We fit a mathematical model on prevalence data ofMycobacterium ulceransin western Africa and we show that removing the most abundant taxa for this category of pathogen is not an optimal strategy to decrease the transmission of the mycobacterium within aquatic ecosystems. On the contrary, we reveal that the removal of some taxa, especially Oligochaeta worms, can clearly reduce rates of pathogen transmission and should be considered as a keystone organism for its transmission because it leads to a substantial reduction in pathogen prevalence regardless of the network topology. Besides its potential application for the understanding ofM. ulceransecology, we discuss about how networks of species interactions can modulate transmission of multi-host pathogens.
authors.affiliation: UMMISCO (UMI 209 IRD-UPMC), Bondy, France.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Roche
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1115, USA.
authors.forename: M Eric
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Benbow
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1115, USA.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Merritt
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1115, USA.
authors.forename: Ryan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kimbirauskas
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1115, USA.
authors.forename: Mollie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McIntosh
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA, USA.
authors.forename: Pamela L C
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Small
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA, USA.
authors.forename: Heather
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Williamson
authors.affiliation: UMR MIVEGEC (IRD 224-CNRS 5290-UM1-UM2), Montpellier, France ; French School of Public Health, Interdisciplinary research center on biodiversity, climate change and infectious diseases, Montpellier, France.
authors.forename: Jean-François
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Guégan