Building a comprehensive phylogenetic framework in disease ecology.

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Evolutionary Biology
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Disease spillover events in multispecies systems can lead to the emergence of zoonotic diseases.
• Current approaches to understanding disease emergence often lack integration of species evolutionary relationships.

Purpose of the Study:

• To highlight the need for incorporating species relatedness metrics in disease ecology.
• To identify challenges and propose solutions for integrating phylogenetic information into disease emergence studies.

Main Methods:

• Review of current methodologies in disease ecology and phylogenetics.
• Analysis of the gap in integrating phylogenetic data into disease emergence models.

Main Results:

• The integration of phylogenetic information into disease ecology is currently underdeveloped.
• Existing disease ecology frameworks do not sufficiently account for the evolutionary relatedness of species.

Conclusions:

• Incorporating phylogenetic relatedness is crucial for accurately predicting zoonotic disease emergence.
• Developing novel approaches that combine phylogenetics and disease ecology is essential for future research andOne sentence, 160 characters max. Keywords: disease spillover, zoonoses, phylogenetics, disease ecology.