Data from: Resource-driven encounters among consumers and implications for the spread of infectious disease

Citation
Bellan SE, Getz WM. 2017. Data from: Resource-driven encounters among consumers and implications for the spread of infectious disease. Movebank Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.5441/001/1.n1r7ds5r
Abstract
Animals share a variety of common resources, which can be a major driver of conspecific encounter rates. In this work, we implement a spatially explicit mathematical model for resource visitation behaviour in order to examine how changes in resource availability can influence the rate of encounters among consumers. Using simulations and asymptotic analysis, we demonstrate that, under a reasonable set of assumptions, the relationship between resource availability and consumer conspecific encounters is not monotonic. We characterize how the maximum encounter rate and associated critical resource density depend on system parameters like consumer density and the maximum distance from which consumers can detect and respond to resources. The assumptions underlying our theoretical model and analysis are motivated by observations of large aggregations of black-backed jackals at carcasses generated by seasonal outbreaks of anthrax among herbivores in Etosha National Park, Namibia. As non-obligate scavengers, black-backed jackals use carcasses as a supplemental food resource when they are available. While jackals do not appear to acquire disease from ingesting anthrax carcasses, changes in their movement patterns in response to changes in carcass abundance do alter jackals' conspecific encounter rate in ways that may affect the transmission dynamics of other diseases, such as rabies. Our theoretical results provide a method to quantify and analyse the hypothesis that the outbreak of a fatal disease among herbivores can potentially facilitate outbreaks of an entirely different disease among jackals. By analysing carcass visitation data, we find support for our model's prediction that the number of conspecific encounters at resource sites decreases with additional increases in resource availability. Whether or not this site-dependent effect translates to an overall decrease in encounters depends, unexpectedly, on the relationship between the maximum distance of detection and the resource density.
Keywords
Canis mesomelas,animal movement,animal tracking,black-backed jackal,Canis mesomelas,disease ecology,Etosha National Park,jackal
Taxa
Taxon
Canis mesomelas
Black-backed Jackal
Sensors
Sensor
GPS
Related Workflows
BibTex
@misc{001/1_n1r7ds5r,
  title = {Data from: Resource-driven encounters among consumers and implications for the spread of infectious disease},
  author = {Bellan, SE and Getz, WM},
  year = {2017},
  URL = {http://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.n1r7ds5r},
  doi = {doi:10.5441/001/1.n1r7ds5r},
  publisher = {Movebank data repository}
}
RIS
TY  - DATA
ID  - doi:10.5441/001/1.n1r7ds5r
T1  - Data from: Resource-driven encounters among consumers and implications for the spread of infectious disease
AU  - Bellan, Steven E.
AU  - Getz, Wayne M.
Y1  - 2017/10/11
KW  - Canis mesomelas
KW  - animal foraging
KW  - animal movement
KW  - animal tracking
KW  - black-backed jackal
KW  - Canis mesomelas
KW  - disease ecology
KW  - Etosha National Park
KW  - jackal
KW  - Canis mesomelas
PB  - Movebank data repository
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.n1r7ds5r
DO  - doi:10.5441/001/1.n1r7ds5r
ER  -
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