title: Zoonoses As Ecological Entities: A Case Review of Plague.
abstract: As a zoonosis, Plague is also an ecological entity, a complex system of ecological interactions between the pathogen, the hosts, and the spatiotemporal variations of its ecosystems. Five reservoir system models have been proposed: (i) assemblages of small mammals with different levels of susceptibility and roles in the maintenance and amplification of the cycle; (ii) species-specific chronic infection models; (ii) flea vectors as the true reservoirs; (iii) Telluric Plague, and (iv) a metapopulation arrangement for species with a discrete spatial organization, following a source-sink dynamic of extinction and recolonization with naïve potential hosts. The diversity of the community that harbors the reservoir system affects the transmission cycle by predation, competition, and dilution effect. Plague has notable environmental constraints, depending on altitude (500+ meters), warm and dry climates, and conditions for high productivity events for expansion of the transmission cycle. Human impacts are altering Plague dynamics by altering landscape and the faunal composition of the foci and adjacent areas, usually increasing the presence and number of human cases and outbreaks. Climatic change is also affecting the range of its occurrence. In the current transitional state of zoonosis as a whole, Plague is at risk of becoming a public health problem in poor countries where ecosystem erosion, anthropic invasion of new areas, and climate change increase the contact of the population with reservoir systems, giving new urgency for ecologic research that further details its maintenance in the wild, the spillover events, and how it links to human cases.
authors.affiliation: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Biológicas, Centro de Ciências Exatas e da Natureza, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Campus I, João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil.|Laboratório de Mamíferos, Departamento de Sistemática e Ecologia, Centro de Ciências Exatas e da Natureza, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Campus I, João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil.
authors.forename: Caio Graco
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0490-4395
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Zeppelini
authors.affiliation: Centro de Pesquisa Aggeu Magalhães Fiocruz, Campus da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil.
authors.forename: Alzira Maria Paiva
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: de Almeida
authors.affiliation: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Biológicas, Centro de Ciências Exatas e da Natureza, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Campus I, João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil.|Laboratório de Mamíferos, Departamento de Sistemática e Ecologia, Centro de Ciências Exatas e da Natureza, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Campus I, João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil.
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cordeiro-Estrela
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D057231:Climate Change; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000517:prevention & control; D004197:Disease Reservoirs / Q000382:microbiology*; D055669:Ecological and Environmental Phenomena; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D010930:Plague / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology / Q000635:transmission*; D011634:Public Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D012621:Seasons; D005423:Siphonaptera / Q000382:microbiology; D013045:Species Specificity; D015010:Yersinia pestis / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000502:physiology*; D015047:Zoonoses