Among mammalian host species, many behavioral traits, such as sociality and ranging behavior, can impact the dynamics of infectious diseases transmitted via close contact or through contact with infectious particles in the environment. Though data on transmission rates from wild host-parasite systems are scarce, host traits that underlie the transmission process can vary predictably with adult body size, one of the best studied traits among mammals. We examined body-size scaling of two traits, social group size and the intensity of home range usage, to parameterize models of disease dynamics across multiple species of primates, ungulates, and rodents.
Results/Conclusions
We find that incorporating allometrically-scaled behavioral traits into classical models of infectious disease affects a number of key epidemiological characteristics, such as the invasibility of a population to infectious disease and the severity of parasite-induced host population cycles. In the absence of detailed data on disease transmission rates, our results suggest qualitative differences in the dynamics of infectious disease identified through simple relationships between host traits and host body size.