Felicia Keesing | |
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 Keesing in Kenya in 2012 | |
| Born | January 24, 1966 Santa Cruz, California, U.S. |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation | Biologist |
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| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Bard College |
Felicia Keesing is an ecologist and the David & Rosalie Rose Distinguished Chair of the Sciences, Mathematics, and Computing at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. [1]
Keesing received her B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University in 1987 and her Ph.D. in Integrative Biology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1997.[ citation needed ]
Keesing's research focuses on the consequences of human impacts, particularly biodiversity loss, for ecological communities. In Kenya, she has studied how the absence of large mammals like giraffes and elephants affects savanna ecology. [2] [3] She and Richard Ostfeld pioneered research on the ecology of Lyme disease, in particular how human risk for Lyme disease is affected by forest fragmentation and the loss of biodiversity. [4] She and Ostfeld also developed core ideas about the general relationship between biodiversity loss and the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases, [5] and a conceptual model of the effects of pulsed resources on ecological communities. [6]
From 2016 to 2021, she and Ostfeld co-directed the Tick Project, a study to test whether environmental interventions could prevent Lyme and other tick-borne diseases in residential neighborhoods of Dutchess County, New York. [7]
Keesing's recent research in Kenya focuses on the ecological, economic, and social consequences of managing land in Laikipia County, Kenya for livestock, wildlife, or both. [8]
In 2009, she served on the steering committee for the Vision and Change [9] initiative to reform the teaching of undergraduate biology, and from 2012 to 2017, with funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, she directed a project on science literacy for college students. In 2017, she led the development of the curriculum for the Citizen Science program [10] at Bard College.
Keesing received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 1999. She is a fellow of the Ecological Society of America (2019) [11] and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2021). [12] In 2022, she was awarded the International Cosmos Prize. [13] Keesing was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2023 [14] , and received the C. Hart Merriam award from the American Society of Mammalogists in 2024 in recognition of "outstanding research in mammalogy over a period of at least 10 years".
A zoonosis or zoonotic disease is an infectious disease of humans caused by a pathogen that can jump from a non-human to a human and vice versa.
Ticks are parasitic arachnids of the order Ixodida. They are part of the mite superorder Parasitiformes. Adult ticks are approximately 3 to 5 mm in length depending on age, sex, species, and "fullness". Ticks are external parasites, living by feeding on the blood of mammals, birds, and sometimes reptiles and amphibians. The timing of the origin of ticks is uncertain, though the oldest known tick fossils are from the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years old. Ticks are widely distributed around the world, especially in warm, humid climates.
Lyme disease, also known as Lyme borreliosis, is a tick-borne disease caused by species of Borrelia bacteria, transmitted by blood-feeding ticks in the genus Ixodes. The most common sign of infection is an expanding red rash, known as erythema migrans (EM), which appears at the site of the tick bite about a week afterwards. The rash is typically neither itchy nor painful. Approximately 70–80% of infected people develop a rash. Early diagnosis can be difficult. Other early symptoms may include fever, headaches and tiredness. If untreated, symptoms may include loss of the ability to move one or both sides of the face, joint pains, severe headaches with neck stiffness or heart palpitations. Months to years later, repeated episodes of joint pain and swelling may occur. Occasionally, shooting pains or tingling in the arms and legs may develop. Despite appropriate treatment, about 5 to 20% of those affected develop long-term symptoms, such as fatigue and problems with memory.
Tick-borne diseases, which afflict humans and other animals, are caused by infectious agents transmitted by tick bites. They are caused by infection with a variety of pathogens, including rickettsia and other types of bacteria, viruses, and protozoa. The economic impact of tick-borne diseases is considered to be substantial in humans, and tick-borne diseases are estimated to affect ~80 % of cattle worldwide. Most of these pathogens require passage through vertebrate hosts as part of their life cycle. Tick-borne infections in humans, farm animals, and companion animals are primarily associated with wildlife animal reservoirs. Many tick-borne infections in humans involve a complex cycle between wildlife animal reservoirs and tick vectors. The survival and transmission of these tick-borne viruses are closely linked to their interactions with tick vectors and host cells. These viruses are classified into different families, including Asfarviridae, Reoviridae, Rhabdoviridae, Orthomyxoviridae, Bunyaviridae, and Flaviviridae.
Borrelia burgdorferi is a gram-negative bacterial species of the spirochete class in the genus Borrelia, and is one of the causative agents of Lyme disease in humans. Along with a few similar genospecies, some of which also cause Lyme disease, it makes up the species complex of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato. The complex currently comprises 20 accepted and 3 proposed genospecies. B. burgdorferi sensu stricto exists in North America and Eurasia and until 2016 was the only known cause of Lyme disease in North America.
The white-footed mouse is a rodent native to North America from southern Canada to the southwestern United States and Mexico. In the Maritimes, its only location is a disjunct population in southern Nova Scotia. It is also known as the woodmouse, particularly in Texas.
An emerging infectious disease (EID) is an infectious disease whose incidence has increased recently, and could increase in the near future. The minority that are capable of developing efficient transmission between humans can become major public and global concerns as potential causes of epidemics or pandemics. Their many impacts can be economic and societal, as well as clinical. EIDs have been increasing steadily since at least 1940.
An emergent virus is a virus that is either newly appeared, notably increasing in incidence/geographic range or has the potential to increase in the near future. Emergent viruses are a leading cause of emerging infectious diseases and raise public health challenges globally, given their potential to cause outbreaks of disease which can lead to epidemics and pandemics. As well as causing disease, emergent viruses can also have severe economic implications. Recent examples include the SARS-related coronaviruses, which have caused the 2002–2004 outbreak of SARS (SARS-CoV-1) and the 2019–2023 pandemic of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). Other examples include the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes HIV/AIDS; the viruses responsible for Ebola; the H5N1 influenza virus responsible for avian influenza; and H1N1/09, which caused the 2009 swine flu pandemic. Viral emergence in humans is often a consequence of zoonosis, which involves a cross-species jump of a viral disease into humans from other animals. As zoonotic viruses exist in animal reservoirs, they are much more difficult to eradicate and can therefore establish persistent infections in human populations.
Borrelia is a genus of bacteria of the spirochete phylum. Several species cause Lyme disease, also called Lyme borreliosis, a zoonotic, vector-borne disease transmitted by ticks. Other species of Borrelia cause relapsing fever, and are transmitted by ticks or lice, depending on the species of bacteria. A few Borrelia species as Candidatus Borrelia mahuryensis harbor intermediate genetic features between Lyme disease and relapsing fever Borrelia. The genus is named after French biologist Amédée Borrel (1867–1936), who first documented the distinction between a species of Borrelia, B. anserina, and the other known type of spirochete at the time, Treponema pallidum. This bacterium must be viewed using dark-field microscopy, which make the cells appear white against a dark background. Borrelia species are grown in Barbour-Stoenner-Kelly medium. Of 52 known species of Borrelia, 20 are members of the Lyme disease group, 29 belong to the relapsing fever group, and two are members of a genetically distinct third group typically found in reptiles. A proposal has been made to split the Lyme disease group based on genetic diversity and move them to their own genus, Borelliella, but this change is not widely accepted. This bacterium uses hard and soft ticks and lice as vectors. Testing for the presence of the bacteria in a human includes two-tiered serological testing, including immunoassays and immunoblotting.
Lyme disease, or borreliosis, is caused by spirochetal bacteria from the genus Borrelia, which has 52 known species. Three species are the main causative agents of the disease in humans, while a number of others have been implicated as possibly pathogenic. Borrelia species in the species complex known to cause Lyme disease are collectively called Borrelia burgdorferisensu lato (s.l.), not to be confused with the single species Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, a member of the complex, which is responsible for nearly all cases of Lyme disease in North America.
Ixodes scapularis is commonly known as the deer tick or black-legged tick, and in some parts of the US as the bear tick. It was also named Ixodes dammini until it was shown to be the same species in 1993. It is a hard-bodied tick found in the eastern and northern Midwest of the United States as well as in southeastern Canada. It is a vector for several diseases of animals, including humans and is known as the deer tick owing to its habit of parasitizing the white-tailed deer. It is also known to parasitize mice, lizards, migratory birds, etc. especially while the tick is in the larval or nymphal stage.
Southern tick-associated rash illness (STARI) is an emerging infectious disease related to Lyme disease that occurs in southeastern and south-central United States. It is spread by tick bites and it was hypothesized that the illness was caused by the bacteria Borrelia lonestari. However, there is insufficient evidence to declare this Borrelia strain as a causative agent.
Human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA) is a tick-borne, infectious disease caused by Anaplasma phagocytophilum, an obligate intracellular bacterium that is typically transmitted to humans by ticks of the Ixodes ricinus species complex, including Ixodes scapularis and Ixodes pacificus in North America. These ticks also transmit Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases.
Spillover infection, also known as pathogen spillover and spillover event, occurs when a reservoir population with a high pathogen prevalence comes into contact with a novel host population. The pathogen is transmitted from the reservoir population and may or may not be transmitted within the host population. Due to climate change and land use expansion, the risk of viral spillover is predicted to significantly increase.
Patricia (Pat) Anne Nuttall, OBE is a British virologist and acarologist known for her research on tick-borne diseases. Her discoveries include the fact that pathogens can be transmitted between vectors feeding on a host without being detectable in the host's blood. She is also a science administrator who served as the director of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (2001–11). As of 2015, she is professor of arbovirology in the Department of Zoology of the University of Oxford.
Katherine Elizabeth Jones is a British biodiversity scientist, with a special interest in bats. She is Professor of Ecology and Biodiversity, and Director of the Biodiversity Modelling Research Group, at University College London. She is a past chair of the Bat Conservation Trust.
Disease ecology is a sub-discipline of ecology concerned with the mechanisms, patterns, and effects of host-pathogen interactions, particularly those of infectious diseases. For example, it examines how parasites spread through and influence wildlife populations and communities. By studying the flow of diseases within the natural environment, scientists seek to better understand how changes within our environment can shape how pathogens, and other diseases, travel. Therefore, diseases ecology seeks to understand the links between ecological interactions and disease evolution. New emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases are increasing at unprecedented rates which can have lasting impacts on public health, ecosystem health, and biodiversity.
Global climate change has increased the occurrence of some infectious diseases. Infectious diseases whose transmission is impacted by climate change include, for example, vector-borne diseases like dengue fever, malaria, tick-borne diseases, leishmaniasis, zika fever, chikungunya and Ebola. One mechanism contributing to increased disease transmission is that climate change is altering the geographic range and seasonality of the insects that can carry the diseases. Scientists stated a clear observation in 2022: "The occurrence of climate-related food-borne and waterborne diseases has increased ."
A. Alonso Aguirre is an American veterinarian, wildlife biologist, academic and researcher. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, College of Science, and he also chairs the university Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at George Mason University.
Richard Simon Ostfeld is a Distinguished Senior Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. He is best known for his work on the ecology of Lyme disease, which he began studying while monitoring the abundance of small mammals in the forests of Cary Institute property in the early 1990s.
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