ArticleEcology2016
Disease introduction is associated with a phase transition in bighorn sheep demographics.
Article in Ecology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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.
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.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Aoudad (Ammotragus lervia) as disease reservoirs for bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis): experimental and epidemiological evidence.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Outcomes of Selective Removals for Control of Pneumonia in a Bighorn Sheep Metapopulation.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Fatal interactions: pneumonia in bighorn lambs following experimental exposure to carriers ofJournal of clinical microbiology · 2025Article
- Infection-nutrition feedbacks: fat supports pathogen clearance but pathogens reduce fat in a wild mammal.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Comparative genomic analysis identifies potential adaptive variation inMicrobial genomics · 2024Article
- Mesomycoplasma ovipneumoniae from goats with respiratory infection: pathogenic characteristics, population structure, and genomic features.BMC microbiology · 2023Article
- Can disease resistance evolve independently at different ages? Genetic variation in age-dependent resistance to disease in three wild plant species.The Journal of ecology · 2022Article
- Bighorn sheep show similar in-host responses to the same pathogen strain in two contrasting environments.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Disease Ecology of a Low-VirulenceAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Using transcriptomics to predict and visualize disease status in bighorn sheep (Conservation physiology · 2022Article
- Genomic association with pathogen carriage in bighorn sheep (Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Impact ofPeerJ · 2021Article
- Evaluating wildlife translocations using genomics: A bighorn sheep case study.Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
- Removal of chronicEcology and evolution · 2020Article
- How sure are you? A web-based application to confront imperfect detection of respiratory pathogens in bighorn sheep.PloS one · 2020Article
- Genetic structure of Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae informs pathogen spillover dynamics between domestic and wild Caprinae in the western United States.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Respiratory pathogens and their association with population performance in Montana and Wyoming bighorn sheep populations.PloS one · 2018Article
- Contact and contagion: Probability of transmission given contact varies with demographic state in bighorn sheep.The Journal of animal ecology · 2017Article
- Exposure of bighorn sheep to domestic goats colonized with Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae induces sub-lethal pneumonia.PloS one · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Ecological theory suggests that pathogens are capable of regulating or limiting host population dynamics, and this relationship has been empirically established in several settings. However, although studies of childhood diseases were integral to the development of disease ecology, few studies show population limitation by a disease affecting juveniles. Here, we present empirical evidence that disease in lambs constrains population growth in bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) based on 45 years of population-level and 18 years of individual-level monitoring across 12 populations. While populations generally increased (λ = 1.11) prior to disease introduction, most of these same populations experienced an abrupt change in trajectory at the time of disease invasion, usually followed by stagnant-to-declining growth rates (λ = 0.98) over the next 20 years. Disease-induced juvenile mortality imposed strong constraints on population growth that were not observed prior to disease introduction, even as adult survival returned to pre-invasion levels. Simulations suggested that models including persistent disease-induced mortality in juveniles qualitatively matched observed population trajectories, whereas models that only incorporated all-age disease events did not. We use these results to argue that pathogen persistence may pose a lasting, but under-recognized, threat to host populations, particularly in cases where clinical disease manifests primarily in juveniles.
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Registered trials
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.