Pathogen Emergence at the Forest Edge: A One Health Approach to Understand Spillover

My research investigates how anthropogenic forest change alters the ecology, evolution and
transmission of zoonotic viruses. In this seminar, I will discuss longitudinal studies of unique communities of people and wildlife along the perimeters of accelerated forest loss in the Congo, Amazon and Mekong basin forests. This work investigates theory and mechanisms that enable viruses to have more opportunities to adapt at the edge of ecosystem boundaries - influencing virus host plasticity and ultimately increasing spillover risk as new forest edges are formed through anthropogenic activities. I will describe studies characterizing (i) ebolavirus transmission cycles and spillover risk in human and eastern gorilla populations in east Africa and (ii) the emergence of zoonotic coronaviruses in karst cave systems of Myanmar. These studies will ultimately inform functional relationships between forest change, biodiversity loss, and virus transmission to improve our ability to predict high-risk systems for disease emergence.

Speaker: Tierra Smiley Evans, University of California, Davis