Modelling the influence of host community composition in a sylvatic Trypanosoma cruzi system

Species composition of wild reservoir hosts can influence the transmission and maintenance of multi-host vector borne pathogens. The 'pace of life' hypothesis proposes that the life history strategy of reservoir hosts can influence pathogen transmission of vector borne generalist pathogens. We use empirical data to parameterize a mathematical model that investigates the impacts of host life history traits on vector transmission dynamics of the vector-borne multi-host parasite Trypanosoma cruzi in habitats characterized by different degrees of deforestation and varying host community structure. The model considers susceptible and infected vector and host populations. When comparing the proportion of vectors infected with T. cruzi predicted by the model with empirical data, we found a trend of increasing vector infection as anthropogenic landscape disturbance increases for both data and model output. The model's vector infection rates were significantly lower than empirical results, but when incorporating host congenital transmission in the model, vector infection approaches field data. We conclude that intervened habitats associated with r-selected host species communities predict higher proportions of infected vectors.