Data from: Infection of the fittest: devil facial tumour disease has greatest effect on individuals with highest reproductive output

Emerging infectious diseases rarely affect all members of a population equally and determining how individuals’ susceptibility to infection is related to other components of their fitness is critical to understanding disease impacts at a population level and for predicting evolutionary trajectories. We introduce a novel state-space model framework to investigate survival and fecundity of Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) affected by a transmissible cancer, devil facial tumour disease. We show that those devils that become host to tumours have otherwise greater fitness, with higher survival and fecundity rates prior to disease induced death than non-host individuals that do not become infected, although high tumour loads lead to high mortality. Our finding that individuals with the greatest reproductive value are those most affected by the cancer demonstrates the need to quantify both survival and fecundity in context of disease progression for understanding the impact of disease on wildlife populations.

新发传染病极少会对种群内所有个体造成均等影响，明确个体的感染易感性与其适合度的其他维度之间的关联，对于解析疾病在种群层面的影响、预测演化轨迹均至关重要。本研究提出一种全新的状态空间模型（state-space model）框架，用于探究受传染性癌症——袋獾面部肿瘤病（devil facial tumour disease）——感染的袋獾（Sarcophilus harrisii）的存活与繁殖能力。研究表明，尽管肿瘤负荷较高会导致更高的死亡率，但成为肿瘤宿主的袋獾在其他维度上具备更优的适合度：在因疾病诱导死亡前，它们的存活概率与繁殖率均高于未受感染的非宿主个体。本研究发现繁殖价值最高的个体恰恰最易受该癌症影响，这表明若要解析疾病对野生种群的影响，需在疾病进展的背景下对存活与繁殖能力进行量化分析。