Biology Seminar Series - George B. Saul II Lecture in Biology

The Ecology of Infection at the Anthropogenic Interface

As a disease ecologist working at the interface of biodiversity conservation and global health, Gillespie strives to determine how and why anthropogenic changes to tropical forests place wildlife, people, and domesticated animals in such ecosystems at increased risk of pathogen exchange. Gillespie will discuss how collaborators and himself have pursued these questions using diverse pathogen study systems (gastrointestinal eukaryotic parasites, bacteria, and viruses) within ecosystems experiencing distinct forms of disturbance (i.e., selective logging, forest fragmentation, tourism) throughout the biodiverse tropics.