Most parasites and pathogens infect multiple hosts, but a great deal of variation exists in the role of those hosts in persistence of infection. Understanding which hosts are most important in maintaining parasites can provide a clearer target for infection control. Recently developed empirical and theoretical approaches provide a way to quantify the relative contribution of hosts within a community and place them in a multi‐host framework to better direct control efforts. Amphibians provide a framework for better understanding multi‐host–multi‐parasite dynamics. Two well‐studied amphibian parasites, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) and Ranavirus, infect multiple host species and exhibit a great deal of heterogeneity in how they affect hosts. We used these two parasites and a community of five amphibian species to investigate the relative importance of hosts in parasite persistence, and how any patterns varied spatially and temporally. At two sites (Lake Ercina and Lake Lloroza in the Picos de Europa National Park, Spain) we collected data on the prevalence and shedding rate of parasite infection for both Bd and Ranavirus, and the abundance of each species’ life stages. We used these data to parameterize a recently developed modeling framework, which was used to quantify the relative contribution of each host to the community reproductive number, R₀. By comparing each host‐category over time and between sites we were able to identify consistencies in which host was responsible for the maintenance of these two parasites. Within a site one species consistently contributed the most to the persistence of both parasites. This consistency did not transfer between sites, the maintenance host species being different for each. At one site (Ercina), life stages of the common midwife toad, Alytes obstetricans, acted as the maintenance host for both Bd and Ranavirus. In contrast, at the second site, Lloroza, the alpine newt, Ichthyosaura alpestris, fulfilled that role. A single host species was responsible for infection persistence of both parasites at each lake. Attempts to control the infection levels and impacts of multiple parasites can benefit from a community epidemiology approach, and provide clarity on which hosts are the foci of mitigation efforts. However, at a small spatial scale, the target host may vary according to the physical qualities of those sites and the demographics of the host community.

中文翻译：

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宿主对寄生虫持久性的贡献在寄生虫之间和随着时间的推移是一致的，但在空间上会有所不同

大多数寄生虫和病原体感染多个宿主，但是这些宿主在感染持续性中的作用存在很大差异。了解哪些宿主对维持寄生虫最重要，可以为感染控制提供更清晰的目标。最近开发的经验和理论方法提供了一种量化宿主在社区中的相对贡献并将其置于多宿主框架中的方法，以更好地指导控制工作。两栖动物为更好地理解多宿主多寄生虫动力学提供了一个框架。两种经过充分研究的两栖寄生虫，巴氏梭菌（Btrachochytrium dendrobatidis）（Bd）和Ranavirus感染多种宿主物种，并且在它们如何影响宿主方面表现出很大的异质性。我们使用这两个寄生虫和五个两栖动物群落来研究宿主在寄生虫持久性中的相对重要性，以及任何模式在空间和时间上如何变化。在两个地点（西班牙皮科斯德欧罗巴国家公园的Ercina湖和Lloroza湖），我们收集了有关Bd和Ranavirus寄生虫感染的流行率和脱落率以及每个物种生命阶段的丰富度的数据。我们使用这些数据对最近开发的建模框架进行参数化，该框架用于量化每个宿主对社区生殖数R ₀的相对贡献。。通过比较一段时间内和站点之间的每个宿主类别，我们能够确定宿主负责维护这两个寄生虫的一致性。在一个地点内，一个物种始终对两个寄生虫的持久性贡献最大。这种一致性并未在站点之间转移，每个维护主机的物种都不相同。在一个地点（埃雷西纳），普通助产蟾蜍的生命阶段，即产妇Alytes，充当了Bd和Ranavirus的维持宿主。相比之下，在第二个站点Lloroza，高山lp，Ichthyosaura alpestris，履行了这一职责。单个寄主物种负责每个湖中两种寄生虫的感染持久性。尝试控制感染水平和多种寄生虫的影响可以从社区流行病学方法中受益，并可以清楚地说明哪些宿主是缓解工作的重点。但是，在较小的空间范围内，目标宿主可能会根据这些站点的物理质量和宿主社区的人口统计信息而有所不同。