Rodent and Disease Ecology

How do changing landscapes shape the lives of small mammals—and what does that mean for human exposure to the pathogens they carry?

At the Rodent and Disease Ecology lab, we explore this question from a multidisciplinary approach, combining population, landscape, behaviour and movement ecology with virology, molecular biology, epidemiology, ecotoxicology and social sciences to understand spatio-temporal changes in the dynamics of (small) mammals and their pathogens, their predators and ultimately, how those intertwined dynamics under a context of global change can cascade into zoonotic spillover and outbreaks in humans. Our approach pairs long-term monitoring, cross-biome collaborations and manipulative experiments.