ReviewAnnals of the New York Academy of Sciences2020
Community context for mechanisms of disease dilution: insights from linking epidemiology and plant-soil feedback theory.
Review in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
What it found
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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.
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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.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- Beyond the germ: Rethinking implant-related infections as a host-microbiota-biomaterial ecosystem.Biofilm · 2026Review
- The effect of nine-year nitrogen addition on foliar fungal diseases of plant groups in an alpine meadow.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Pathogen dilution, resource partitioning, and precipitation generate productivity benefits from plant diversity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Parasitiformes (ticks) and Acariformes (mites) vectors and their vertebrate host diversity: A global scoping review.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Review
- Application of Microbiome Feedback Theory to Animals: Can Parasites Drive Coexistence in Ungulate Communities?Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Article
- Host-Microbiome Interactions as Moderators of Host Quality and Biodiversity-Disease Relationships.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Review
- Diversity-disease relationships in natural microscopic nematode communities.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Interactive effects of leaf pathogens and plant mycorrhizal type on plant diversity-productivity relationships.Ecology · 2025Article
- Soil microbiome composition is highly responsive to precipitation and plant composition manipulations in a field biodiversity experiment.Frontiers in microbiomes · 2025Article
- Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi equalize differences in plant fitness and facilitate plant species coexistence through niche differentiation.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- Dilution of specialist pathogens drives productivity benefits from diversity in plant mixtures.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Rapid differentiation of soil and root microbiomes in response to plant composition and biodiversity in the field.ISME communications · 2023Article
- Role of plant relatedness in plant-soil feedback dynamics of sympatricEcology and evolution · 2023Article
- Plant neighbours can make or break the disease transmission chain of a fungal root pathogen.The New phytologist · 2022Article
- Metapopulations with habitat modification.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Microbiome influence on host community dynamics: Conceptual integration of microbiome feedback with classical host-microbe theory.Ecology letters · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In many natural systems, diverse host communities can reduce disease risk, though less is known about the mechanisms driving this "dilution effect." We relate feedback theory, which focuses on pathogen-mediated coexistence, to mechanisms of dilution derived from epidemiological models, with the central goal of gaining insights into host-pathogen interactions in a community context. We first compare the origin, structure, and application of epidemiological and feedback models. We then explore the mechanisms of dilution, which are grounded in single-pathogen, single-host epidemiological models, from the perspective of feedback theory. We also draw on feedback theory to examine how coinfecting pathogens, and pathogens that vary along a host specialist-generalist continuum, apply to dilution theory. By identifying synergies among the feedback and epidemiological approaches, we reveal ways in which organisms occupying different trophic levels contribute to diversity-disease relationships. Additionally, using feedbacks to distinguish dilution in disease incidence from dilution in the net effect of disease on host fitness allows us to articulate conditions under which definitions of dilution may not align. After ascribing dilution mechanisms to macro- or microorganisms, we propose ways in which each contributes to diversity-disease and productivity-diversity relationships. Our analyses lead to predictions that can guide future research efforts.
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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.