How cultural innovations trigger the emergence of new pathogens

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Pooladvand, Pantea; Kendal, Jeremy R.; Tanaka, Mark M.
• 署名单位: University of New South Wales Sydney; University of New South Wales Sydney; Durham University
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-10182
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2322882121
• 发表日期: 2024-11-26
• 关键词: transmission; EVOLUTION; origins; trait

摘要

Cultural practices perceived to be adaptive-from clearing land for food production to medical innovations-can disseminate quickly through human populations. However, these same practices often have unintended maladaptive effects. A particularly consequential effect is the emergence of diseases. In numerous instances, a cultural change followed by the appearance of a new pathogen. Here, we develop mathematical models to analyze the population processes through which cultural evolution precipitates the emergence of a new disease. We find that when a risk-bearing cultural practice spreads, emergence can be an unavoidable cost even if a safer alternative practice eventually evolves from the original. Social learning and a fitness advantage associated with the evolving practice drive early disease emergence but the two factors have distinct effects on the time to mutation of the pathogen and significant stochastic variation is observed. For example, a disease can take longer to emerge in a population that adopts the risk bearing practice quickly than in a population that is slow to transition. Extending the model to explore the effects of an alternative practice evolving from the original, we find a nonmonotonic relationship between relative risk of the two practices and the median time to disease emergence. Our findings contribute to understanding how cultural evolution can shape pathogen evolution and highlight the unpredictability of disease emergence.