Evidence map›Paper›PMID 25035798›Full record

ArticleEcology and evolution2014

Length of intervals between epidemics: evaluating the influence of maternal transfer of immunity.

Romain Garnier, Sylvain Gandon, Karin C Harding, Thierry Boulinier

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Ecology and evolution, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
1.0field-weighted citation impact, top 24% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed, 11 citations in OpenAlex.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.

Romain GarnierCentre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), CNRS-UMR 5175 Montpellier Cedex 5, F 34293, France ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University Princeton, New Jersey, 08544.
Sylvain GandonCentre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), CNRS-UMR 5175 Montpellier Cedex 5, F 34293, France.
Karin C HardingDepartment of Marine Ecology, Gothenburg University Box 461, Gothenburg, SE-405 30, Sweden.
Thierry BoulinierCentre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), CNRS-UMR 5175 Montpellier Cedex 5, F 34293, France.
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique · FRCentre d'Écologie Fonctionnelle et Évolutive · FRUniversity of Gothenburg · SE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The length of intervals between epidemic outbreaks of infectious diseases is critical in epidemiology. In several species of marine mammals and birds, it is pivotal to also consider the life history of the species of concern, as the contact rate between individuals can have a seasonal flux, for example, due to aggregations during the breeding season. Recently, particular interest has been given to the role of the dynamics of immunity in determining the intervals between epidemics in wild animal populations. One potentially powerful, but often neglected, process in this context is the maternal transfer of immunity. Here, we explore theoretically how the transfer of maternal antibodies can delay the recurrence of epidemics using Phocine Distemper in harbor seals as an example of a system in which epidemic outbreaks are followed by pathogen extinction. We show that the presence of temporarily protected newborns can significantly increase the predicted interval between epidemics, and this effect is strongly dependent on the degree of synchrony in the breeding season. Furthermore, we found that stochasticity in the onset of epidemics in combination with maternally acquired immunity increases the predicted intervals between epidemics even more. These effects arise because newborns with maternal antibodies temporarily boost population level immunity above the threshold of herd immunity, particularly when breeding is synchronous. Overall, our results show that maternal antibodies can have a profound influence on the dynamics of wildlife epidemics, notably in gregarious species such as many marine mammals and seabirds.

Indexed as

Epidemiologyharbor sealhost–parasite interactionsmaternal antibodiesphocine distemper

Identifiers

PMID25035798
PMCPMC4098137
OpenAlexW2048310148

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.