Re-inventing the wheel: Disease ecology across systems

Background/Question/Methods

There is a troubling paradox in the biological sciences: despite the ubiquity of most basic principles across the tree of life, scientists still tend to group, and label others, more by study organism than by the discipline or central question. For disease ecology (and evolution) in particular, this presents a significant challenge to progress. Infectious diseases are often caused by pathogens with complex life cycles or transmission requirements that involve coordination of species across kingdoms. Yet, those who study plant pathogens tend to get labeled as "plant people", articles on antibiotic resistance from medical journals quote E&E articles so rarely that the word 'evolution' seldom appears, and those studying natural systems tend to scoff at the notion that research in applied systems can contribute to answering fundamental questions.

Results/Conclusions

Broader scholarship, and critically - the use of more shared vocabulary, is a challenge with huge reward potential. Not only has the recent adoption of the 'one health' framework led to more unified vision of disease spread and interdisciplinary control strategies, answers to inevitably shared questions can often be found without entirely reinventing the wheel. Appreciating the parallels between systems widens the breadth of both tools and knowledge, and increases the chances we may find explanations for patterns we may otherwise have characterized as unique. I will give a run-down of specific barriers, share some anecdotes on working in disease ecology across diverse systems, and provide examples from the literature that I hope will encourage more of this needed cross-talk.