Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) not only cause catastrophic declines in wildlife populations but also generate selective pressures that may result in rapid evolutionary responses. One such EID is devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) in the Tasmanian devil. DFTD is almost always fatal and has reduced the average lifespan of individuals by around 2 years, likely causing strong selection for traits that reduce susceptibility to...

Top carnivores can influence the structure of ecological communities, primarily through competition and predation; however, communities are also influenced by bottom-up forces such as anthropogenic habitat disturbance. Top carnivore declines will likely alter competitive dynamics within and amongst sympatric carnivore species. Increasing intraspecific competition is generally predicted to drive niche expansion and/or individua...

A plethora of intrinsic and environmental factors have been shown to influence the length of telomeres, the protector of chromosome ends. Despite the growing interest in infection–telomere interactions, there is very limited knowledge on how transmissible cancers influence telomere maintenance. An emblematic example of transmissible cancer occurs in the Tasmanian devil ( Sarcophilus harrisii ), whose populations have been dram...

Understanding the effects of wildlife diseases on populations requires insight into local environmental conditions, host defence mechanisms, host life‐history trade‐offs, pathogen population dynamics, and their interactions. The survival of Tasmanian devils ( Sarcophilus harrisii ) is challenged by a novel, fitness limiting pathogen, Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease (DFTD), a clonally transmissible, contagious cancer. In...

Infectious diseases are strong drivers of wildlife population dynamics, however, empirical analyses from the early stages of pathogen emergence are rare. Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease (DFTD), discovered in 1996, provides the opportunity to study an epizootic from its inception. We use a pattern‐oriented diffusion simulation to model the spatial spread of DFTD across the species' range and quantify population effects by...

Genetic structure in host species is often used to predict disease spread. However, host and pathogen genetic variation may be incongruent. Understanding landscape factors that have either concordant or divergent influence on host and pathogen genetic structure is crucial for wildlife disease management. Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) was first observed in 1996 and has spread throughout almost the entire Tasmanian devil ge...

Emerging infectious diseases increasingly threaten wildlife populations. Most studies focus on managing short‐term epidemic properties, such as controlling early outbreaks. Predicting long‐term endemic characteristics with limited retrospective data is more challenging. We used individual‐based modeling informed by individual variation in pathogen load and transmissibility to predict long‐term impacts of a lethal, transmissibl...

Identifying the genetic architecture of complex phenotypes is a central goal of modern biology, particularly for disease‐related traits. Genome‐wide association methods are a classical approach for identifying the genomic basis of variation in disease phenotypes, but such analyses are particularly challenging in natural populations due to sample size difficulties. Extensive mark–recapture data, strong linkage disequilibrium an...

Emerging infectious diseases rarely affect all members of a population equally and determining how individuals’ susceptibility to infection is related to other components of their fitness is critical to understanding disease impacts at a population level and for predicting evolutionary trajectories. We introduce a novel state‐space model framework to investigate survival and fecundity of Tasmanian devils ( Sarcophilus harrisii...

Pathogen‐driven declines in animal populations are increasingly regarded as a major conservation issue. The Tasmanian devil ( Sarcophilus harrisii ) is threatened with extinction by devil facial tumor disease, a unique transmissible cancer. The disease is transmitted through direct transfer of tumor cells, which is possible because the genetic diversity of Tasmanian devils is low, particularly in the major histocompatibility c...

Most pathogens threatening to cause extinction of a host species are maintained on one or more reservoir hosts, in addition to the species that is threatened by disease. Further, most conventional host–pathogen theory assumes that transmission is related to host density, and therefore a pathogen should become extinct before its sole host. Tasmanian devil facial tumor disease is a recently emerged infectious cancer that has led...

The structure of the contact network between individuals has a profound effect on the transmission of infectious disease. Using a novel technology – proximity sensing radio collars – we described the contact network in a population of Tasmanian devils. This largest surviving marsupial carnivore is threatened by a novel infectious cancer. All devils were connected in a single giant component, which would permit disease to sprea...