title: Integral Projection Models for host-parasite systems with an application to amphibian chytrid fungus.
abstract: Host parasite models are typically constructed under either a microparasite or macroparasite paradigm. However, this has long been recognized as a false dichotomy because many infectious disease agents, including most fungal pathogens, have attributes of both microparasites and macroparasites.We illustrate how Integral Projection Models (IPM)s provide a novel, elegant modeling framework to represent both types of pathogens. We build a simple host-parasite IPM that tracks both the number of susceptible and infected hosts and the distribution of parasite burdens in infected hosts.The vital rate functions necessary to build IPMs for disease dynamics share many commonalities with classic micro and macroparasite models and we discuss how these functions can be parameterized to build a host-parasite IPM. We illustrate the utility of this IPM approach by modeling the temperature-dependent epizootic dynamics of amphibian chytrid fungus in Mountain yellow-legged frogs (Rana muscosa).The host-parasite IPM can be applied to other diseases such as facial tumor disease in Tasmanian devils and white-nose syndrome in bats. Moreover, the host-parasite IPM can be easily extended to capture more complex disease dynamics and provides an exciting new frontier in modeling wildlife disease.
authors.affiliation: Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93117.
authors.forename: Mark Q
authors.initials: MQ
authors.lastname: Wilber
authors.affiliation: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064.
authors.forename: Kate E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Langwig
authors.affiliation: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064.
authors.forename: A Marm
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Kilpatrick
authors.affiliation: Griffith School of Environment, Griffith University, Nathan QLD 4111, Australia.
authors.forename: Hamish I
authors.initials: HI
authors.lastname: McCallum
authors.affiliation: Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93117.
authors.forename: Cheryl J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Briggs
keywords: Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; Rana muscosa; devil facial tumor disease; fungal disease; macroparasite models; microparasite models; parasite aggregation; white-nose syndrome