Host traits and environment interact to drive host-pathogen coexistence
following pathogen invasion
Abstract
Emerging infectious diseases have resulted in severe population declines
across diverse taxa. In some instances, despite attributes associated
with high extinction risk, disease emergence and host declines are
followed by host stabilization for reasons that are frequently unclear.
While host, pathogen, and the environment are recognized as important
factors that interact to determine host-pathogen coexistence, they are
often considered independently. Here, we use a translocation experiment
to disentangle the role of host traits and environmental conditions in
driving the persistence of remnant populations a decade after they
declined 70-99% and subsequently stabilized with disease. While
survival was significantly higher than during the initial epidemic
within all sites, protection from severe disease only existed within a
narrow environmental space, suggesting host traits conducive to
surviving disease are highly environmentally dependent. Ultimately,
population persistence following pathogen invasion is the product of
host-pathogen interactions that vary across a patchwork of environments.