Co-infection best predicts respiratory viral infection in a wild host

1) The dynamics of directly transmitted pathogens in natural populations are likely to result from the combined effects of host traits, pathogen biology and interactions among pathogens within a host. Discovering how these factors work in concert to shape variation in pathogen dynamics in natural host – multi‐pathogen systems is fundamental to understanding population health. 2) Here, we describe temporal variation in incidence and then elucidate the effect of hosts trait, season, and pathogen co‐occurrence on host infection risk using one of the most comprehensive studies of co‐infection in a wild population: a suite of seven directly‐transmitted, viral and bacterial, respiratory infections from a four‐year study of 200 free‐ranging African buffalo (Syncerus caffer). 3) Incidence of upper respiratory infections was common throughout the study – five out of the seven pathogens appeared to be consistently circulating throughout our study population. One pathogen exhibited clear out...