Asynchronous seasonal dynamics of nycteribiid bat flies and Bartonella spp. in Australian flying foxes (Pteropus spp.) - Parasites & Vectors Background Bat flies are ubiquitous ectoparasites of bats, recognised as potential vectors for viral and bacterial transmission between individual bats within a roost. Despite this, little is known ab...

And Brent Jones' paper in Parasites & Vectors showed that bat fly populations in Australia have consistent seasonal population changes with peaks in summer and decreases during winter, though changes in Bartonella prevalence were asynchronous and less pronounced.
doi.org/10.1186/s130...

Cohorts of immature Pteropus bats show interannual variation in Hendra virus serology Pteropus bat with offspring, photo taken by Manuel Ruiz-Aravena.

Dan Crowley's paper in Journal of Animal Ecology showed that Bartonella infection rates were consistent across birth cohorts of immature flying foxes, indicating that opportunities for pathogen transmission remained consistent over time.
doi.org/10.1111/1365...

This paper came out concurrently with a few others that I coauthored with colleagues in the BatOneHealth group that include related data on Bartonella and bat flies in Australian bats. Really interesting to see how ubiquitous and prevalent these bacteria are across multiple bat species!

The paper sat on bioRxiv for a few years while I tried to carve time out to revise the paper to send to another journal. Definitely not ideal and there are lots of things I would do differently 😅 But a good lesson in persistence! Get those old papers off the back burner and send them out again!

I started on this project in 2013 during my Master's, but decided to hold it for my PhD. I then finished all the lab work in 2017 and the data analysis in 2019. Drafting the manuscript took a few more years after I had started my postdoc, then it got rejected from the first journal I sent it to 🫠

The study provides some of the first experimental evidence that bat flies are vectors of Bartonella, which we had long suspected based on observational studies. The study also turned into a neat opportunity to investigate some of the ecological forces that shape communities of parasites over time.

Manipulating vector transmission reveals local processes in Bartonella communities of bats | Parasitology | Cambridge Core Manipulating vector transmission reveals local processes in Bartonella communities of bats

I'm so excited to have the last chapter of my PhD OUT!! Based on a longitudinal study of captive fruit bats in Ghana, we show that a decline in the population density of bat flies resulted in decreased Bartonella prevalence, which then rebounded when flies were restocked.
doi.org/10.1017/s003...

Graduate Summer Institute of Epidemiology and Biostatistics | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

If you’re looking to strengthen your skills in data wrangling and analysis, I’d love to have you join my course.
👉 Registration is now open.
publichealth.jhu.edu/academics/gr...

I’m excited to be teaching “Introduction to R for Public Health Researchers” at the 44th Summer Institute of Epidemiology & Biostatistics this June!

🗓️ June 8-19, 2026
📊 Short, intensive course with practical, applied skills
🌍 Online Hybrid

Switching word processors with Zotero Moving from Google Docs to Word will break your Zotero citations/bibliography linkages unless you do this first.

As a long-time Zotero user, this feels illegal. How did I not know you could do this?!

Say hello to my little friends.

An animal source of mpox emerges — and it’s a squirrel Researchers solve the mystery of a disease outbreak through long-term surveillance of wildlife in Africa.

Mpox has inflicted Africa since 1970 but its origins remain a mystery

Thanks to long-term surveillance, scientists were able to pinpoint a squirrel species as the source of mpox outbreak

But is it the reservoir? Or is it part of a network of reservoirs?

My latest in @nature.com

shorturl.at/lY7Kf

Disease ecologist starter pack -- reply with people/organizations to be added or with related lists/feeds

#diseaseecology

🦠🐀🦠🦇🦠🦭🦠🦆🦠 go.bsky.app/RwAuiNT

Bat genomes illuminate adaptations to viral tolerance and disease resistance - Nature A systematic analysis of 115 mammalian genomes, including 10 new bat genomes, reveals prevalent positive selection in immune genes in bats and shows key adaptations in the antiviral gene ISG15 that ai...

🚨Bat1K Paper Alert🚨There couldn’t be a better first post for us on this app - excited to share 10 new bat genomes and groundbreaking insights into bat immunity and viral resistance! 🌍🔬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...