calendarInvited workshop: chemical signaling and host-vector dynamics
When: January 25, 2007
Where: 510 Mueller Lab, University Park (map)
Contact: Matt Ferrari
Background and aims
A key challenge in understanding the dynamics of infectious diseases at the population scale is identifying how interactions between hosts and vectors affect disease transmission.
Recently, the field of chemical ecology has made strong advances in characterizing how interactions among individuals (both within and between species) are mediated by chemical signaling. These developments provide us with a mechanism to study the interactions among individuals as they pertain to the potential spread of parasites.
In particular, arthropod foraging is strongly affected by the hosts' chemical profile, which has implications for the transmission of vectored parasites. Variation in chemical profiles due to genotype or environmental conditions may result in heterogeneities in encounter rates with vectors and the resulting incidence of disease. Furthermore, chemical signaling is plastic and may change in response to parasite infection. This may further impact parasite transmissibility, as vectors are attracted to — or avoid — infected hosts.
Thus, interactions between hosts and vectors may affect dynamical patterns at the population level. Combining chemical and behavioral methods with population scale epidemiology enables us to study how pathogens impact host-vector interactions via chemical signaling.
This workshop brings together CIDD with the Center for Chemical Ecology to discuss common research interests and the potential for collaborative grants.
Agenda
- 09:30 Welcome and introduction
- 09:40 Tracy Conklin: Aphids and the Luteoviridae: vector attraction
- 10:00 Diana Cox-Foster: tba
- 10:20 Jim Tumlinson: A brief discussion of methods for collecting volatile organic compounds
- 10:40 Coffee
- 11:00 Andy Stephenson: Volitile mediated exposure to bacterial wilt disease in Cucurbita pepo
- 11:20 John Tooker: Field-based methods in chemical ecology
Lunch
- 1:00 Imgard Seidl-Adams: PCR, a versatile method for multiple applications
- 1:20 Eleca Dunham: Underlying patterns of differential transmission in the family Flaviviridae
- 1:40 Tom Baker: tba
- 2:00 Matt Ferrari: Statistical models for detecting vector biased transmission
- 2:20 Mark Mescher: tba
- 3:00 Discussion and break-out groups