Disease dynamics during ecosystem restoration and faunal reassembly
- 1University of Antwerp
Abstract
Biodiversity recovery is increasingly promoted as a strategy for restoring ecosystem services, including the regulation of infectious diseases. However, it remains unclear how the potential for pathogen transmission interacts with the timing of biodiversity recovery and the life history of the recovering species to shape the disease dynamics during restoration. Here, we developed a stochastic multi-host metacommunity epidemic model to investigate how the timing of the establishment of slow life history species, pathogen transmissibility, and host-community succession jointly influence disease outcomes in recovering ecosystems. Pathogen transmissibility (R_0) was the dominant predictor of epidemic intensity, whereas the delayed timing of establishment of slow life history species during restoration emerged as a major ecological determinant of pathogen persistence. Delayed establishment of slow life-history hosts consistently increased disease prevalence and persistence by prolonging the dominance of highly competent fast life-history hosts. Generalized additive models revealed a strong interaction between delayed timing of slow life-history species establishment and pathogen transmissibility, explaining more than 90% of the variation in pathogen persistence. The influence of timing of establishment of slow life history species was weak for pathogens with low transmission potential but increased markedly as R_0 increased. Sensitivity analyses further showed that, once pathogen transmissibility was controlled, timing of establishment became the strongest predictor of persistence, whereas among-host spillover transmission primarily influenced the speed of epidemic spread. In contrast, maximum species richness had comparatively little influence on disease outcomes, indicating that the functional composition and assembly timing of recovering communities may be more important than richness alone for predicting disease dynamics. Together, these results demonstrate that disease regulation during ecosystem restoration depends not only on pathogen transmissibility, but also on the life history traits and the timing of establishment of species within recovering communities. Our findings identify life history traits and the timing of when functional communities are restored as a key ecological lever influencing long-term pathogen maintenance in restored ecosystems.
Related
- Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics of Anadromous Alewife Restoration in a Whole-Ecosystem Experiment.
- Indigenous communities' perceptions of ecosystem services of a montane forest ecosystem in Nigeria: Implications for restoration planning
- Ecosystem accounting to support coastal restoration decision-making
- Syntropic farming systems for reconciling productivity, ecosystem functions, and restoration
- Towards Automated Acoustic Monitoring of Threatened Birds in Tropical Forest Ecosystem Restoration
BibTeX
@misc{voinson2026disease,
title = {{Disease dynamics during ecosystem restoration and faunal reassembly}},
author = {M. Voinson and D. Erazo and C. Faust and N. Bunnefeld and A. A. Rija and H. Leirs and L. Paez-Triana and V. Sluydts and J. Marien and L. Kirkpatrick},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.64898/2026.11.05.764583},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.05.764583v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Disease dynamics during ecosystem restoration and faunal reassembly
AU - M. Voinson
AU - D. Erazo
AU - C. Faust
AU - N. Bunnefeld
AU - A. A. Rija
AU - H. Leirs
AU - L. Paez-Triana
AU - V. Sluydts
AU - J. Marien
AU - L. Kirkpatrick
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/05
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.11.05.764583
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.05.764583v1
AB - Biodiversity recovery is increasingly promoted as a strategy for restoring ecosystem services, including the regulation of infectious diseases. However, it remains unclear how the potential for pathogen transmission interacts with the timing of biodiversity recovery and the life history of the recovering species to shape the disease dynamics during restoration. Here, we developed a stochastic multi-host metacommunity epidemic model to investigate how the timing of the establishment of slow life history species, pathogen transmissibility, and host-community succession jointly influence disease outcomes in recovering ecosystems. Pathogen transmissibility (R_0) was the dominant predictor of epidemic intensity, whereas the delayed timing of establishment of slow life history species during restoration emerged as a major ecological determinant of pathogen persistence. Delayed establishment of slow life-history hosts consistently increased disease prevalence and persistence by prolonging the dominance of highly competent fast life-history hosts. Generalized additive models revealed a strong interaction between delayed timing of slow life-history species establishment and pathogen transmissibility, explaining more than 90% of the variation in pathogen persistence. The influence of timing of establishment of slow life history species was weak for pathogens with low transmission potential but increased markedly as R_0 increased. Sensitivity analyses further showed that, once pathogen transmissibility was controlled, timing of establishment became the strongest predictor of persistence, whereas among-host spillover transmission primarily influenced the speed of epidemic spread. In contrast, maximum species richness had comparatively little influence on disease outcomes, indicating that the functional composition and assembly timing of recovering communities may be more important than richness alone for predicting disease dynamics. Together, these results demonstrate that disease regulation during ecosystem restoration depends not only on pathogen transmissibility, but also on the life history traits and the timing of establishment of species within recovering communities. Our findings identify life history traits and the timing of when functional communities are restored as a key ecological lever influencing long-term pathogen maintenance in restored ecosystems.
ER -