Since the identification and imprisonment of “Typhoid Mary”, a woman who infected at least 47 people with typhoid in the early 1900s, epidemiologists have recognized that “superspreading” hosts play a key role in disease epidemics. Such variability in transmission also exists among species within a community and among habitat patches across a landscape, underscoring the need for an integrative framework for studying transmission heterogeneity, or the differences among hosts or locations in their contribution to pathogen spread. Here, we synthesize literature on human, plant, and animal diseases to evaluate the relative influence of host, pathogen, and environmental factors in producing highly infectious individuals, species, and landscapes. We show that host and spatial heterogeneity are closely linked and that quantitatively assessing the contribution of infectious individuals, species, or environmental patches to overall transmission can aid management strategies. We conclude by posing hypotheses regarding how pathogen natural history influences transmission variability and highlight emerging frontiers in this area of study.

中文翻译：

---

从超级传播者到疾病热点：将跨宿主和空间传播联系起来

自 1900 年代初期感染至少 47 人的伤寒妇女“伤寒玛丽”被确认和监禁以来，流行病学家已经认识到“超级传播”宿主在疾病流行中起着关键作用。这种传播的变异性也存在于群落内的物种和整个景观的栖息地斑块之间，强调需要一个综合框架来研究传播异质性，或宿主或地点之间对病原体传播的贡献的差异。在这里，我们综合了有关人类、植物和动物疾病的文献，以评估宿主、病原体和环境因素在产生高传染性个体、物种和景观方面的相对影响。我们表明宿主和空间异质性密切相关，定量评估传染性个体、物种或环境斑块对整体传播的贡献可以帮助管理策略。最后，我们提出了关于病原体自然历史如何影响传播变异性的假设，并突出了该研究领域的新兴前沿。