title: Plague epizootic cycles in Central Asia.
abstract: Infection thresholds, widely used in disease epidemiology, may operate on host abundance and, if present, on vector abundance. For wildlife populations, host and vector abundances often vary greatly across years and consequently the threshold may be crossed regularly, both up- and downward. Moreover, vector and host abundances may be interdependent, which may affect the infection dynamics. Theory predicts that if the relevant abundance, or combination of abundances, is above the threshold, then the infection is able to spread; if not, it is bound to fade out. In practice, though, the observed level of infection may depend more on past than on current abundances. Here, we study the temporal dynamics of plague (Yersinia pestis infection), its vector (flea) and its host (great gerbil) in the PreBalkhash region in Kazakhstan. We describe how host and vector abundances interact over time and how this interaction drives the dynamics of the system around the infection threshold, consequently affecting the proportion of plague-infected sectors. We also explore the importance of the interplay between biological and detectability delays in generating the observed dynamics.
authors: Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium jonas.reijniers@uantwerpen.be.
authors: Jonas
authors: J
authors: Reijniers
authors: Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
authors: Mike
authors: M
authors: Begon
authors: Kazakh Scientific Centre for Quarantine and Zoonotic Diseases, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan.
authors: Vladimir S
authors: VS
authors: Ageyev
authors: Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
authors: Herwig
authors: H
authors: Leirs
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005849:Gerbillinae / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000469:parasitology*; D007303:Insect Vectors; D007623:Kazakhstan / Q000453:epidemiology; D010930:Plague / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission; D011157:Population Dynamics; D005423:Siphonaptera / Q000382:microbiology*; D015010:Yersinia pestis
keywords: abundance threshold; flea; gerbil; plague; predator–prey cycle; vector-borne disease