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Luis E Escobar

0000-0001-5735-2750

Assistant Professor (Agricultural, veterinary and food sciences; Biological sciences; Health sciences; Earth sciences; Environmental sciences; Information and computing sciences)

Blacksburg, Virginia, US

My research focuses on the application of ecology and biogeography to the study of infectious diseases. Classic biogeographic theories and methods, however, were not conceived to study host-parasite systems in infectious diseases. Therefore, my laboratory explored suitable theoretical frameworks and methods for investigating the linkages between environmental instability and disease dynamics. To quantitatively support new theoretical frameworks in disease ecology and biogeography, I study a series of multi-parasite, multi-host diseases systems. To untangle effects of environmental instability on disease dynamics, I explicitly assess how diseases respond to climate and landscape change. Due to the unique niche that my research fills in biogeography, in many of these studies I often collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to develop novel computational tools that account for the complexities of host-pathogen disease systems and multi-scale analyses. I categorize my research in three foc

Publications

  • Potential distribution of Pythium insidiosum in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and projections to neighbour countries
  • Retrospective and predictive investigation of fish kill events
  • Distributional ecology of Andes hantavirus: A macroecological approach
  • International meeting on sarcoptic mange in wildlife, June 2018, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
  • An evaluation of transferability of ecological niche models
  • Spatial distribution and spread potential of sixteen Leptospira serovars in a subtropical region of Brazil
  • Mapping parasite transmission risk from white-tailed deer to a declining moose population
  • The ecology of chronic wasting disease in wildlife
  • Using host traits to predict reservoir host species of rabies virus
  • Sarcoptic mange: An emerging panzootic in wildlife
  • Accessible areas in ecological niche comparisons of invasive species: Recognized but still overlooked
  • Towards an eco‐phylogenetic framework for infectious disease ecology
  • Ecological niche modeling re-examined: A case study with the Darwin's fox
  • Infectious disease in fish: global risk of viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus
  • Toxoplasma gondii infection in wild mustelids and cats across an urban-rural gradient
  • Aquatic Invasive Species in the Great Lakes Region: An Overview
  • Spatiotemporal variation in environmental \textlessi\textgreaterVibrio cholerae\textless/i\textgreater in an estuary in southern coastal Ecuador
  • Domestic horses within the Maya biosphere reserve: A possible threat to the Central American tapir (Tapirus bairdii)
  • Summary results of the 2014-2015 DARPA Chikungunya challenge
  • First case of New Delhi metallo-$β$-lactamase in Klebsiella pneumoniae from Ecuador: An update for South America
  • Using the KDE method to model ecological niches: A response to Blonder et al. (2017)
  • Forecasting distributions of an aquatic invasive species (Nitellopsis obtusa) under future climate scenarios
  • Novel nethods in disease biogeography: A case study with heterosporosis
  • Inferring the ecological niche of \textlessi\textgreaterToxoplasma gondii\textless/i\textgreater and \textlessi\textgreaterBartonella\textless/i\textgreater spp. in wild felids
  • Distribución de \textlessi\textgreaterAedes aegypti\textless/i\textgreater y \textlessi\textgreaterAedes albopictus\textless/i\textgreater en Guatemala 2016
  • Introduccion a los análisis espaciales con enfasis en los modelos de nicho ecologico
  • Advances and Limitations of Disease Biogeography Using Ecological Niche Modeling
  • The history of rabies in the Western Hemisphere
  • Amblyomma ticks and future climate: Range contraction due to climate warming
  • Oropouche fever, an emergent disease from the Americas
  • Forecasting Chikungunya spread in the Americas via data-driven empirical approaches
  • NicheA: creating virtual species and ecological niches in multivariate environmental scenarios
  • Potential distribution of the viral haemorrhagic septicaemia virus in the Great Lakes region
  • A cautionary note on the use of hypervolume kernel density estimators in ecological niche modelling
  • Surveillance fatigue (\textlessi\textgreaterfatigatio vigilantiae\textless/i\textgreater) during epidemics
  • Successful strategies implemented towards the elimination of canine rabies in the Western Hemisphere
  • Declining prevalence of disease vectors under climate change
  • Realized niche shift associated with the Eurasian charophyte Nitellopsis obtusa becoming invasive in North America
  • Vegetation loss and the 2016 Oropuche fever outbreak in Peru
  • Advances and limitations of disease biogeography using ecological niche modeling
  • In response to: "Increased dog population and potential for bat-borne rabies spillover in Chile in response to "Dog management, abundance and potential for bat-borne rabies spillover in Chile" by Astorga et al. [Prev. Vet. Med. 118:397-405]" by Acosta-Jammet, G.
  • Niche similarities among white-eared opossums (mammalia, didelphidae): Is ecological niche modelling relevant to setting species limits?
  • Dog ownership, abundance and potential for bat-borne rabies spillover in Chile
  • Modelos de nicho ecológico en salud pública: Cinco preguntas cruciales
  • Zika virus, elevation, and transmission risk
  • Fleas and ticks in carnivores from a domestic-wildlife interface: Implications for public health and wildlife
  • Ecological approaches in veterinary epidemiology: Mapping the risk of bat-borne rabies using vegetation indices and night-time light satellite imagery
  • Bat-borne rabies in Latin America
  • First report on bat mortalities on wind farms in Chile
  • Anthropogenic disturbance and habitat loss for the red-listed Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus): Using ecological niche modeling and nighttime light satellite imagery
  • Spatial and temporal trends of bat-borne rabies in Chile
  • Galictis cuja (Mammalia): An update of current knowledge and geographic distribution | Galictis cuja (Mammalia): Actualización sobre su conocimiento y distribución geográfica
  • Potential for spread of the white-nose fungus (Pseudogymnoascus destructans) in the Americas: Use of Maxent and NicheA to assure strict model transference
  • Potential geographic distribution of hantavirus reservoirs in Brazil
  • Ecology and Geography of Transmission of Two Bat-Borne Rabies Lineages in Chile
  • Spatial epidemiology of bat-borne rabies in Colombia
  • Avian flu and Newcastle Antibodies in Great-tailed Grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) in Guatemala City | Anticuerpos circulantes contra Influenza Aviar y Newcastle en zanates (Quiscalus mexicanus) de la ciudad de Guatemala
  • Las enfermedades emergentes y la conservación de la biodiversidad en Chile: Vacíos legales en el Proyecto de Ley de Áreas Protegidas
  • Conservation from Heaven: Remote Sensing and Open Access Tools to Guide Biodiversity Conservation
  • Wildlife veterinarians rabies vaccination in Chile: A survey
  • Two new flea records from Guatemala: Pulex simulans and Echidnophaga gallinacea (Siphonaptera: Pulicidae), and their host-parasite relationship
  • A database of global coastal conditions
  • Spatial compartmentalization: A nonlethal predator mechanism to reduce parasite transmission between prey species
  • A Cross Sectional Sampling Reveals Novel Coronaviruses in Bat Populations of Georgia
  • ENM2020: A Free Online Course and Set of Resources on Modeling Species' Niches and Distributions
  • Climate change has affected the spillover risk of bat-borne pathogens
  • Revealing the complexity of vampire bat rabies “spillover transmission”
  • The role of global reanalyses in climate services for health: Insights from the Lancet Countdown
  • Climate change and infectious disease: a review of evidence and research trends
  • Assessing Variation in the Individual-Level Impacts of a Multihost Pathogen
  • A review of the diet of the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) in the context of anthropogenic change
  • Climate change linked to vampire bat expansion and rabies virus spillover
  • Human cat borne rabies as the new epidemiology of the disease in the Andes mountains
  • Estimating pathogen‐spillover risk using host–ectoparasite interactions

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