“Does a Respiratory Virus Have an Ecological Niche, and If So, Can It Be Mapped?” Yes and Yes

Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease

article

Christopher R. Stephens¹  Constantino González-Salazar¹  Pedro Romero-Martínez¹ 

[1] C3—Centro de Ciencias de la Complejidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México;Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México;Instituto de Ciencias de la Atmósfera y Cambio Climático, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

关键词: ecology;    epidemiology;    SARS-Cov-2;    COVID-19;    ecological niche model;    species distribution model;    Bayesian analysis;    causal inference;   

DOI  :  10.3390/tropicalmed8030178

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Although the utility of Ecological Niche Models (ENM) and Species Distribution Models (SDM) has been demonstrated in many ecological applications, their suitability for modelling epidemics or pandemics, such as SARS-Cov-2, has been questioned. In this paper, contrary to this viewpoint, we show that ENMs and SDMs can be created that can describe the evolution of pandemics, both in space and time. As an illustrative use case, we create models for predicting confirmed cases of COVID-19, viewed as our target “species”, in Mexico through 2020 and 2021, showing that the models are predictive in both space and time. In order to achieve this, we extend a recently developed Bayesian framework for niche modelling, to include: (i) dynamic, non-equilibrium “species” distributions; (ii) a wider set of habitat variables, including behavioural, socio-economic and socio-demographic variables, as well as standard climatic variables; (iii) distinct models and associated niches for different species characteristics, showing how the niche, as deduced through presence-absence data, can differ from that deduced from abundance data. We show that the niche associated with those places with the highest abundance of cases has been highly conserved throughout the pandemic, while the inferred niche associated with presence of cases has been changing. Finally, we show how causal chains can be inferred and confounding identified by showing that behavioural and social factors are much more predictive than climate and that, further, the latter is confounded by the former.

【 授权许可】

CC BY