Disease Ecology: Community Structure and Pathogen Dynamics, by S. K. Collinge and C. Ray (eds.)

Abstract

S. K. Collinge, C. Ray (eds.). 2006. Disease Ecology: Community Structure and Pathogen Dynamics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom, 227 + xii pp. ISBN ISBN 0-19-856708-1, price (hardbound), $132. “Turn the page and start reading, because the world needs your contributions to community epidemiology.” This recruiting sentence finishes the introductory chapter of this book and from it the intentions and target audience can be inferred. This book is designed to provide tools and theoretic background for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, health workers, and researchers interested in the novel field of disease ecology. Disease Ecology focuses—by and large—on the effects of parasites on host community structure, and the effects of host community structure on parasite dynamics, for a large number of systems. The book covers a variety of host-parasite systems, ranging from many that are likely to be unfamiliar to most mammalogists (e.g., freshwater community interactions and malaria) to others that are better known to us (Lyme disease and rabies). The thread that connects all of the chapters is exemplified by the title of the 3rd paper ( Community ecology meets epidemiology: the case of Lyme disease ) by Rick Ostfeld and colleagues. The self-proclaimed conceptual advance this book attempts to convey …