Ecological Aspects of Disease and Human Populations

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Abstract
This paper shows how some basic ecological themes can be illustrated, in a very explicit and quantitative way, by examples drawn from the interactions between human hosts and their infectious diseases. I first discuss the population biology of infectious diseases, showing how basic reproductive rates and density dependent limitations may be estimated. Observed cycles in the incidence of childhood infections are discussed as examples of Lotka-Volterra prey-predator cycles. Trade-offs between virulence and transmissibility in the evolution of parasite life histories are discussed in general,with the Australian rabbit-myxoma virus story as a case study. I conclude by mentioning ways in which the interplay between population density and transmission thresholds may have influenced human history.

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