background: interest in tatera indica rodent arises mostly because it is believed that this species is survived among four subspecies reported from iran, two of which exist in khuzestan province. in addition, it might has a role as res­ervoir hosts of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in the transmission of leishmania major in some of the widespread asian foci including southwestern iran. method...

Knowledge of infection reservoir dynamics is critical for effective disease control, but identifying reservoirs of multi-host pathogens is challenging. Here, we synthesize several lines of evidence to investigate rabies reservoirs in complex carnivore communities of the Serengeti ecological region in northwest Tanzania, where the disease has been confirmed in 12 carnivore species.Long-term moni...

The definition of a reservoir has changed significantly in the last century, making it necessary to study zoonosis from a broader perspective. One important example is that of Leishmania, zoonotic multi-host parasites maintained by several mammal species in nature. The magnitude of the health problem represented by leishmaniasis combined with the complexity of its epidemiology make it necessary...

Bats are natural reservoirs of several important emerging viruses. Cross-species transmission appears to be quite common among bats, which may contribute to their unique reservoir potential. Therefore, understanding the importance of bats as reservoirs requires examining them in a community context rather than concentrating on individual species. Here, we use a network approach to identify ecol...

Zoonotic viruses, such as HIV, Ebola virus, coronaviruses, influenza A viruses, hantaviruses, or henipaviruses, can result in profound pathology in humans. In contrast, populations of the reservoir hosts of zoonotic pathogens often appear to tolerate these infections with little evidence of disease. Why are viruses more dangerous in one species than another? Immunological studies investigating ...

In this article, we summarize the major scientific developments of the last decade on the transmission of infectious agents in multi-host systems. Almost sixty percent of the pathogens that have emerged in humans during the last 30-40 years are of animal origin and about sixty percent of them show an important variety of host species besides humans (3 or more possible host species). In this rev...

Parasite infections often lead to dramatically different outcomes among host species. Although an emerging body of ecoimmunological research proposes that hosts experience a fundamental trade-off between pathogen defences and life-history activities, this line of inquiry has rarely been extended to the most essential outcomes of host-pathogen interactions: namely, infection and disease patholog...

Animal and plant species differ dramatically in their quality as hosts for multi-host pathogens, but the causes of this variation are poorly understood. A group of small mammals, including small rodents and shrews, are among the most competent natural reservoirs for three tick-borne zoonotic pathogens, Borrelia burgdorferi, Babesia microti, and Anaplasma phagocytophilum, in eastern North Americ...

Identification of the determinants of pathogen reservoir potential is central to understand disease emergence. It has been proposed that host lifespan is one such determinant: short-lived hosts will invest less in costly defenses against pathogens, so that they will be more susceptible to infection, more competent as sources of infection and/or will sustain larger vector populations, thus being...

Many parasites infect multiple sympatric host species, and there is a general assumption that parasite transmission between co-occurring host species is commonplace. Such between-species transmission could be key to parasite persistence within a disease reservoir and is consequently an emerging focus for disease control. However, while a growing body of theory indicates the potential importance...