Disputas: Tamara Ben Ari

Prøveforelesning

Bedømmelseskomité

Professor J.A.P. (Hans) Heesterbeek, Theoretical Epidemiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Utrecht, Yalelaan 7, 3584 CL Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Professor Jean-Francois Guégan, Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases, Unité Mixte de Recherche 2724 IRD-CNRS-Université de Montpellier, Centre IRD de Montpellier, 911 avenue Agropolis, BP 64501, F-34394 Montpellier cedex 5, France
Førsteamanuensis II Hildegunn Viljugrein, CEES, Department of Biology, University of Oslo, P.O.Box 1066 Blindern, N-0316 Oslo, Norway

Leder av disputas:  Professor Trond Schumacher

Veileder:  Nils Chr. Stenseth (NO) og Bernard Cazelles (FR)

Sammendrag

Plague is an infectious disease caused by a bacterium that circulates among small mammal populations and their fleas. Humans accidentally contract plague after exposure to infected animals or if bitten by fleas.Plague dynamics is complex and still poorly understood.
Its geographical distribution suggests a strong link with climate that remains to be elucidated.

In this thesis, large-scale epidemiological (time series of yearly number of plague occurrences in human) data for the Western U.S. and China are analyzed using various statistical tools.

We find that, to successfully study the relation between plague and climate it is important to consider sub-regions that present coherent plague characteristics. For example, in a vast country like China smaller territories need to be defined that can subsequently reveal different climate effects on plague. In China, such a subdivision suggests the existence of two very different types of plague territories (corresponding the Southern wet mountainous areas or to the drier Northern steppes) that can interestingly be found in other parts of the world.
The western U.S roughly corresponds to the latter type. There, favorable plague conditions correspond to a milder and wetter than average climate over relatively long periods of time (decadal rather than interannual).
Difficulties inherent to investigating plague dynamics from epidemiological data are discussed throughout the thesis.

The research has been conducted in the Center for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES) at the Department of Biology, University of Oslo

Kontaktperson

For mer informasjon, kontakt Gry Slettner Windsland.