La santé animale perçue à la lumière de l’écologie et de l’évolution

Abstract

Animal health perceived in the light of ecology and evolution Infectious diseases remain a major cause of animal mortality and morbidity. Global changes, including fragmentation of habitats of many animal species, modify the ecology of host-parasite relationships and the selection pressures on infectious agents, introducing high uncertainty about the impact and evolution of these diseases. In such a context, it is important to integrate ecology and evolutionary science to animal health issues for a better understanding and a better management of infectious diseases. From our work we illustrate the contribution of an eco-evolutionary vision of infectious diseases in animals. The first two examples illustrate the importance of including eco-evolutionary dimension to the understanding and management of infectious animal diseases. The last two sections show that, in turn, the data collected in the field can also provide fundamental knowledge on important issues that are often addressed in the laboratory. Given their complexity, these issues can only be addressed by iterating back and forth between experimental data and mathematical modeling.