Data from: 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 fences, can alter observed
contact networks and predict the role that wildlife species have in
maintaining bTB in the community. 3. We found that individual- and
species-level heterogeneity disproportionately influenced indirect and
direct contact networks, with individual-level heterogeneity having a
greater effect on indirect contact networks and species-level
heterogeneity having a greater effect on direct contact networks. We also
found that the installation of deer fences significantly reduced
deer-specific indirect contacts. We used the results from our network
analysis to show that white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) could act
as the sole reservoir host for bTB in this community with important
implications for understanding past bTB dynamics and managing the
persistence of bTB in the future. 4. Synthesis and applications: Analyses
of epidemiological networks rarely account for multiple modes of contact,
which can lead to an incomplete understanding of how individual- and
species-level heterogeneity affect disease transmission. The multi-mode,
multi-species network analysis we develop in this study, illustrates that
individual- and species-level heterogeneity can play significantly
different roles depending on the type of contact network considered. This
has important implications when managing disease at the wildlife-livestock
interface, where strategies may need to be multi-pronged to account for
the variable role of heterogeneity on different modes of
contact.11-Feb-2019