Climate change and extreme weather will have complex effects on infectious disease transmission

Temperature variation affects pathogens and their hosts in distinct ways, and these organisms are influenced by the type of variation and the average background temperature it is applied to. Temperature fluctuations such as heatwaves can have very different effects on infection rates and disease outcomes depending on the average background temperature, says a report published on February 15, 2022, in eLife. The study suggests it will be increasingly difficult to predict the consequences of climate change on host-pathogen interactions as global temperatures rise and extreme weather events become more common. Infectious diseases have profound ecological effects on human, agricultural, and wildlife populations. It is well known that interactions between pathogens and their hosts are sensitive to changes in temperature. But what is less well understood is how sudden and extreme temperature variation affects this relationship and how this influences overall infection rates and disease outcomes. “Climate change is predicted to increase not only average...