Modeling multi-species and multi-mode contact networks: implications for persistence of bovine tuberculosis at the wildlife-livestock interface

1. Individual- and species-level heterogeneity in contact rates can alter the ability of a pathogen to invade a host community. Many pathogens have multiple modes of transmission -- by direct or indirect contact. It is important to identify the role of heterogeneity in different types of transmission when managing the risk of disease spillover at the interface among different host species.
2. We developed a network-based analysis to explore how individual- and species-level heterogeneity shape multi-mode contact networks. We applied this network-based approach to contact data from proximity loggers collected in a multi-species host community that contributes to the spillover of the disease bovine tuberculosis (bTB) to cattle populations in Michigan, USA. We used this approach to quantify how individual- and species-level heterogeneity influence direct and indirect contacts in this system, explore how management interventions to control spillovers, such as the installation of deer fen...