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  • What is a vector?

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    WilsonPUB4573.pdf (1.395Mb)
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    Version of Record (VoR)
    Author(s)
    Wilson, Anthony James
    Morgan, Eric Rene
    Booth, Mark
    Norman, Rachel
    Perkins, Sarah Elizabeth
    Hauffe, Heidi Christine
    Mideo, Nicole
    Antonovics, Janis
    McCallum, Hamish
    Fenton, Andy
    Griffith University Author(s)
    McCallum, Hamish
    Year published
    2017
    Metadata
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    Abstract
    Many important and rapidly emerging pathogens of humans, livestock and wildlife are ‘vector-borne’. However, the term ‘vector’ has been applied to diverse agents in a broad range of epidemiological systems. In this perspective, we briefly review some common definitions, identify the strengths and weaknesses of each and consider the functional differences between vectors and other hosts from a range of ecological, evolutionary and public health perspectives. We then consider how the use of designations can afford insights into our understanding of epidemiological and evolutionary processes that are not otherwise apparent. We ...
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    Many important and rapidly emerging pathogens of humans, livestock and wildlife are ‘vector-borne’. However, the term ‘vector’ has been applied to diverse agents in a broad range of epidemiological systems. In this perspective, we briefly review some common definitions, identify the strengths and weaknesses of each and consider the functional differences between vectors and other hosts from a range of ecological, evolutionary and public health perspectives. We then consider how the use of designations can afford insights into our understanding of epidemiological and evolutionary processes that are not otherwise apparent. We conclude that from a medical and veterinary perspective, a combination of the ‘haematophagous arthropod’ and ‘mobility’ definitions is most useful because it offers important insights into contact structure and control and emphasizes the opportunities for pathogen shifts among taxonomically similar species with similar feeding modes and internal environments. From a population dynamics and evolutionary perspective, we suggest that a combination of the ‘micropredator’ and ‘sequential’ definition is most appropriate because it captures the key aspects of transmission biology and fitness consequences for the pathogen and vector itself. However, we explicitly recognize that the value of a definition always depends on the research question under study. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Opening the black box: re-examining the ecology and evolution of parasite transmission’.
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    Journal Title
    Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B
    Volume
    372
    Issue
    1719
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2016.0085
    Copyright Statement
    © 2017 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
    Subject
    Biological sciences
    Other biological sciences not elsewhere classified
    Biomedical and clinical sciences
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/342632
    Collection
    • Journal articles

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