Peter Hudson

I focus on the ecology of wildlife diseases, including zoonoses. My group uses a mixture of fieldwork, laboratory studies and mathematical modeling to explore disease dynamics in three main study areas.

Epidemiology and population dynamics

• How disease flows through wild animal populations
• Mechanisms that lead to disease persistence within populations
• The consequences of individual infections on host population dynamics. For instance, how the sub-lethal effects of infection destabilize host population dynamics by influencing the fecundity of individuals.

Heterogeneities

• Identifying variation in transmission between infected individuals — and the role of "superspreaders" in disease dynamics.

Parasite interactions

• How infection by one disease agent alters host susceptibility to other parasites and pathogens.

• The consequences of these interactions for host population dynamics.

Much of my work has implications for the control of wildlife diseases, and of emerging zoonotic disease.