Badger social networks correlate with tuberculosis infection.

Abstract

Although disease hosts are classically assumed to interact randomly [1], infection is likely to spread across structured and dynamic contact networks [2]. We used social network analyses to investigate contact patterns of group-living European badgers, Meles meles, which are an important wildlife reservoir of bovine tuberculosis (TB). We found that TB test-positive badgers were socially isolated from their own groups but were more important for flow, potentially of infection, between social groups. The distinctive social position of infected badgers may help explain how social stability mitigates, and social perturbation increases, the spread of infection in badgers.