Environmental toxicity influences disease spread in consumer population

TL;DR

This paper presents a mathematical model showing how environmental toxins influence disease spread and persistence in ecosystems, revealing toxin levels can cause disease eradication or abrupt ecosystem shifts.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model linking environmental toxins to disease dynamics, highlighting their role in ecosystem stability and disease control.

Findings

Toxin levels determine disease persistence and can lead to eradication.

Bistability exists between different ecosystem states.

Abrupt transitions can occur from disease-free to extinction states.

Abstract

The study of infectious disease has been of interest to ecologists since long. The initiation of epidemic and the long term disease dynamics are largely influenced by the nature of the underlying consumer (host)-resource dynamics. Ecological traits of such systems may be often modulated by toxins released in the environment due to ongoing anthropogenic activities. This, in addition to toxin-mediated alteration of epidemiological traits, has a significant impact on disease progression in ecosystems which is quite less studied. In order to address this, we consider a mathematical model of disease transmission in consumer population where multiple traits are affected by environmental toxins. Long term dynamics show that the level of environmental toxin determines disease persistence, and increasing toxin may even eradicate the disease in certain circumstances. Furthermore, our results demonstrate bistability between different ecosystem states and the possibility of an abrupt transition from disease-free coexistence to disease-induced extinction of consumers. Overall the results from this study will help us gain fundamental insights into disease propagation in natural ecosystems in the face of present anthropogenic changes.