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Assessing Burrowing, Nest Construction, and Hoarding in Mice

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Community Assembly Reveals How Environmental Controls Over Rodent Competition Drive Deer Mouse Density and Hantavirus

Angela D Luis^1,2, Dean E Pearson^2,3

¹Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, USA.

Ecology Letters

|March 30, 2026

Summary

Host diversity impacts disease, but effects vary. Community composition, driven by environmental factors, regulates host abundance and Sin Nombre hantavirus (SNV) infection, influencing disease dilution or amplification.

Keywords:

community disassembly dilution effect diversity‐disease relationships hantavirus resource competition sin Nombre virus substitutive assembly

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Published on: January 5, 2012

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Published on: February 26, 2014

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Area of Science:

Ecology
Epidemiology
Disease Ecology

Background:

Host diversity's role in disease prevalence is debated, with potential for dilution or amplification effects.
Understanding factors influencing these diversity-disease relationships is crucial for predicting disease dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how community assembly processes, including abiotic and biotic filtering, explain variations in rodent diversity and Sin Nombre hantavirus (SNV) prevalence.
To determine whether community composition or diversity per se drives disease patterns.

Main Methods:

Applied community assembly theory across 24 southwestern US locations.
Analyzed environmental factors, community composition, host abundance, and SNV infection rates.
Examined resource competition and dietary overlap as mechanisms influencing disease dynamics.

Main Results:

Community composition, not just diversity, was the primary driver of diversity-disease relationships.
Environmental factors shaped community composition, influencing host abundance and SNV infection through competition.
Dilution effects occurred in some communities due to increased dietary overlap, reducing host abundance and SNV.
In other communities, competitive interactions suppressed host abundance and SNV infection across diversity levels.

Conclusions:

Environmental structuring and substitutive assembly processes interact to shape diversity-disease patterns.
Community assembly theory offers a valuable framework for understanding landscape-scale disease dynamics by integrating abiotic and biotic factors.