ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2017
What is a vector?
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled 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.
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
36 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Bartonella quintana detection among arthropods and their hosts: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Parasites & vectors · 2024Pooled it
- Small Ruminant Farms as Managed Ecosystems: A Conceptual Framework for Components and Interactions, and the Role of Health Management.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Review
- Potential of machine learning for prevention and control of neglected tropical diseases: a scoping review.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Climate change and the rising threat of vector-borne diseases in the Andes.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026Review
- Edible baits for systemic flea control, plague mitigation, and wildlife conservation: evaluation of four active ingredients with three rodent species in western North America.International journal for parasitology. Parasites and wildlife · 2026Article
- Asynchronous seasonal dynamics of nycteribiid bat flies and Bartonella spp. in Australian flying foxes (Pteropus spp.).Parasites & vectors · 2026Article
- Challenges in understanding and communicating the risk of zoonotic disease spillover from wild animal meat.PNAS nexus · 2025Article
- Is African Swine Fever Driven by Flying Hematophagous Insects?Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- The impact of blood on vector-borne diseases with emphasis on mosquitoes and sand flies.Trends in parasitology · 2025Review
- A review of filarial nematodes parasitizing tick vectors: unraveling global patterns in species diversity, host associations, and interactions with tick-borne pathogens.Parasites & vectors · 2025Review
- Role of Trachemys scripta elegans in polystome (Platyhelminthes, Monogenea, Polystomatidae) spillover and spillback following the trade of freshwater turtles in southern Europe and North America.Parasite (Paris, France) · 2025Article
- Adaptive immunity inApplied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Review
- Drosophila melanogaster as a model arthropod carrier for the amphibian chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis.PloS one · 2024Article
- Experimental assessment of cross-species transmission in a natural multihost-multivector-multipathogen community.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Reaching the World Health Organization elimination targets for schistosomiasis: the importance of a One Health perspective.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Molecular pathogen screening of louse flies (Diptera: Hippoboscidae) from domestic and wild ruminants in Austria.Parasites & vectors · 2023Article
- Vector-virus interaction affects viral loads and co-occurrence.BMC biology · 2022Article
- Evolutionary consequences of vector-borne transmission: how using vectors shapes host, vector and pathogen evolution.Parasitology · 2022Review
- Scaling effects of temperature on parasitism from individuals to populations.The Journal of animal ecology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Many important and rapidly emerging pathogens of humans, livestock and wildlife are 'vector-borne'. However, the term 'vector' has been applied to diverse agents in a broad range of epidemiological systems. In this perspective, we briefly review some common definitions, identify the strengths and weaknesses of each and consider the functional differences between vectors and other hosts from a range of ecological, evolutionary and public health perspectives. We then consider how the use of designations can afford insights into our understanding of epidemiological and evolutionary processes that are not otherwise apparent. We conclude that from a medical and veterinary perspective, a combination of the 'haematophagous arthropod' and 'mobility' definitions is most useful because it offers important insights into contact structure and control and emphasizes the opportunities for pathogen shifts among taxonomically similar species with similar feeding modes and internal environments. From a population dynamics and evolutionary perspective, we suggest that a combination of the 'micropredator' and 'sequential' definition is most appropriate because it captures the key aspects of transmission biology and fitness consequences for the pathogen and vector itself. However, we explicitly recognize that the value of a definition always depends on the research question under study.This article is part of the themed issue 'Opening the black box: re-examining the ecology and evolution of parasite transmission'.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.