What are the underlying drivers of the spatio-temporal patterns of parasitic diseases?
Parasites represent more than one-third of the Earths total biodiversity. They display an intriguing world-wide geographical variation in richness and prevalence, influenced by the many different alternate host species involved in the life cycle. These features make them particularly sensitive to global anthropogenic induced environmental changes, but also challenging to predict. To develop evidence-based predictive models for the emergence and changing transmission patterns of parasitic diseases, we need to discover basic ecological and biological mechanisms. In my team we work to reveal how anthropogenic changes (climate change, biodiversity loss and habitat disruption) influence parasite distributions and dynamics. We like to combine conceptual and methodological approaches from different discplines, ranging from macroecology, disease ecology to epidemiology and parasitology. We use historical data from museum collections, field-collected data and big-scale parasitological databases, coupled with the power of manipulative experiments and novel environmental DNA-methods. Studies are mainly snail- and mosquito-borne parasites - in Africa, and in Denmark. Toolbox inlcude Bayesian geostatistical modelling, species distribution models, warming experiments and more..
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