Complex ecological relationships, such as host–parasite interactions, are often modeled with laboratory experiments. However, some experimental laboratory conditions, such as temperature or infection dose, are regularly chosen based on convenience or convention, and it is unclear how these decisions systematically affect experimental outcomes. Here, we conducted a meta‐analysis of 58 laboratory studies that exposed amphibians...

Global climate change is increasing the frequency of unpredictable weather conditions; however, it remains unclear how species‐level and geographic factors, including body size and latitude, moderate impacts of unusually warm or cool temperatures on disease. Because larger and lower‐latitude hosts generally have slower acclimation times than smaller and higher‐latitude hosts, we hypothesised that their disease susceptibility i...

Climate change might drive species declines by altering species interactions, such as host–parasite interactions. However, few studies have combined experiments, field data, and historical climate records to provide evidence that an interaction between climate change and disease caused any host declines. A recently proposed hypothesis, the thermal mismatch hypothesis , could identify host species that are vulnerable to disease...

Parasites typically have broader thermal limits than hosts, so large performance gaps between pathogens and their cold‐ and warm‐adapted hosts should occur at relatively warm and cold temperatures, respectively. We tested this thermal mismatch hypothesis by quantifying the temperature‐dependent susceptibility of cold‐ and warm‐adapted amphibian species to the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis ( Bd ) using laborato...

To quantify microbial composition and interactions, we identified prokaryotic communities in the lone star tick ( Amblyomma americanum ) based on 16S rRNA gene sequences and direct probing. The lone star tick is the vector of emerging diseases and host to additional symbionts of unknown activity, and is representative of other blood‐sucking arthropods. We evaluated the potential for vertical (transovarial) transmission by mole...