ABSTRACT
Ecosystem disturbance is a globally important driver of infectious diseases, especially those caused by pathogens that spill over from a wildlife reservoir. Many tick-borne diseases are maintained by vertebrate hosts and tick vectors in communities that can be severely affected by disturbance leading to changes in health outcomes for humans and domestic animals. However, longitudinal studies that examine these responses are few and there has been little progress towards general syntheses of the phenomena. In this chapter, we present cases of tick-borne disease and two widespread disturbance types—fire and timber harvesting. We outline four hypotheses for mechanisms that connect disturbance to disease risk. We present new data on tick response to prescribed burning in Africa along with several other case studies. Through this exploration, we identify crucial missing pieces and provide recommendations for future work. Importantly, we find that the true effects of disturbances on disease risk depend on variation in space, time, disturbance intensity, and ecological contingency (i.e. are context-dependent). Unique components of different ecosystems often lead to different and non-linear responses to similar disturbances.
