Predator interference is a form of competition between predator individuals over access to their prey. There is broad empirical evidence for interference to exist in different strengths in various types of ecological communities. At the same time, parasites are increasingly recognized to alter food web structure and dynamics. In order to investigate the eco-epidemiological interplay between interference and infection, we develop and analyze mathematical models of a predator-prey system, where the predators are subject to both interference and infectious disease. In the absence of infection, equilibrium predator density is known to show a non-monotonic response to interference by first increasing and then decreasing with increasing interference levels. We show that predator infection can change this pattern into a monotonically decreasing predator response to interference, provided the transmissibility is large enough and the pathogenicity is moderate such that the impact of disease on host population density prevails over interference effects. This holds for both types of disease transmission studied here, density-dependent and frequency-dependent. For density-dependent transmission, we find that intermediate values of interference can facilitate disease persistence, whereas the disease would disappear for small or large interference levels. By contrast, for frequency-dependent transmission, disease emergence is independent of interference levels. These dynamic interactions may be important for the understanding of potential biocontrol measures and of spread patterns of zoonotic diseases.

中文翻译：

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与捕食者干扰和感染的生态流行病学相互作用。

捕食者的干扰是捕食者之间争夺猎物的一种竞争形式。有广泛的经验证据表明，各种类型的生态群落以不同的强度存在干扰。同时，人们越来越认识到寄生虫会改变食物网的结构和动力学。为了调查干扰与感染之间的生态流行病学相互作用，我们开发并分析了捕食者—猎物系统的数学模型，在这种系统中，捕食者同时受到干扰和传染病的影响。在没有感染的情况下，已知捕食者的平衡捕食者密度会随着干扰水平的增加先增加然后减少，从而显示出对干扰的非单调响应。我们证明，只要可传播性足够大且病原性中等，以致疾病对宿主种群密度的影响胜过干扰效应，则天敌感染可将这种模式改变为对干扰的单调下降。这适用于这里研究的两种类型的疾病传播，即密度依赖性和频率依赖性。对于依赖密度的传播，我们发现干扰的中间值可以促进疾病的持久性，而对于较小或较大的干扰水平，疾病将消失。相反，对于依赖频率的传播，疾病的出现与干扰水平无关。这些动态相互作用对于理解潜在的生物防治措施和人畜共患疾病的传播方式可能很重要。