The time of infection matters: seasonal interplay between host and pathogen drives epidemic dynamics

Abstract

Host and pathogen dynamics are driven by seasonal variation, leading to complex epidemic patterns which are not well understood. Here, we linked demography and epidemiology in a single framework to reach a mechanistic understanding of disease dynamics in natural populations characterized by seasonality. We applied this approach to depict the interplay between a host, the wild boar, and a viral disease, African swine fever. This virus spreads in wild boar by direct‐contact among living individuals or though contacts with infected carcasses. In this system, both host and pathogen show seasonal patterns: survival and reproduction probabilities vary across the year in the wild boar, and virus persistence in the environment is affected by temperature which influences the speed of carcasses degradation. Using a stochastic individual‐based model, we showed that virus invasion success strongly varies according to the time of introduction due to the seasonal specific interaction between the virus and host. Furthermore, the shape of the following epidemic varies across seasons, with variation in speed and magnitude of the outbreak. Consequently, the host population response was also season‐specific, both regarding the speed of the decline and the change in population structure. Overall, our study highlights the inextricable connections between host, pathogen and the environmental dynamics, and the importance to consider each component to understand disease dynamics.