This site was designed with the

website builder. Create your website today.Start Now

Laboratory of Disease Ecology & Biogeography

From the left: Dr. Escobar, Mariana, Whitney, Paige and Steven

Publications

Book Chapters

Garcia V, Escobar LE. 2019. Chapter 10. Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation. In: First Report of the Assessment of Knowledge of Climate Change in Guatemala. Castellanos, E.; Paiz-Estévez, A.; Escribá, J.; Rosales-Alconero, M. y Santizo, A. (eds). SGCCC. Guatemala City: Editorial Universitaria UVG. (Spanish)

Escobar LE & Craft ME (2017) Advances and Limitations of Disease Biogeography Using Ecological Niche Modeling. In J. Alvarez & A. M. Perez (Eds.), Applications of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Tools in Microbiology of Infectious Diseases. pp. 203–223. Saint Paul: Frontiers.

Escobar LE. (2013) Conservation from Heaven: Remote Sensing and Open Access Tools to Guide Biodiversity Conservation. In: New Hope for Conservation. Beijing: Beijing Forum-Peking University. pp. 13–27.

Escobar LE, Rodríguez Y V & Medina-Vogel G (2012) Emerging Diseases and Biodiversity Conservation in Chile. In: Actas de las VI Jornadas de Derecho Ambiental. (ed. by J. Aranda, X. Insunza, S. Montenegro, P. Moraga & A.L. Uriarte), pp. 275–285. Santiago: Thomsom Reuters. (Spanish)

Scientific manuscripts

(*corresponding author)

hover over the manuscript for PDF

2021

2020

Van de Vuurst P. and Escobar LE*. Perspective: Climate Change and the Relocation of Indonesia’s Capital to Borneo. Frontiers in Earth Science.

Chandrasegaran K, Lahndere C, Escobar LE, Vinauger C. Mosquito ecology, behavior, and disease transmission. Trends in Parasitology.

Accepted

Winter SN, Escobar, L. E.* Chronic Wasting Disease modeling: An overview. Journal of Wildlife Diseases.

2019

Escobar LE, et al. (2019) Ecology of Chronic Wasting Disease in Wildlife. Biological Reviews.

Watts N. et al. (2019). The 2019 Report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change. The Lancet.

Escobar LE*, Moen R, Craft ME, VanderWaal KL. (2019) Mapping potential parasite spillover from white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) to moose (Alces americanus). European Journal of Wildlife Research. 60, 1-11.

Jara M, García-Roa R, Escobar LE, Torres-Carvajal O, Pincheira-Donoso D. (2019) Alternative reproductive adaptations predict asymmetric responses to climate change in lizards. Scientific Reports. 9, 5093

Johnson EE, Escobar LE, Zambrana-Torrelio C. (2019) An ecological framework for modeling the geography of disease transmission. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 34, 655-668.

Rodriguez YV, Poo-Muñoz DA, Escobar LE*, Astorga F, Medina-Vogel G. (2019) Carnivore-livestock conflicts in Chile: Evidence and methods for mitigation. Human-Wildlife Interactions. 13, 50-62.

Phelps NBD, Bueno I, Poo-Munoz DA, Knowles SJ, Massarani S, Rettkowski R, Shen L, Rantala H, Phelps PLF, Escobar LE*. (2019) Retrospective and predictive investigation of fish kill events. Journal of Aquatic Animal Health. 31, 61-70.

Peterson AT, et al. (2019) Open access solution for biodiversity journals: Don’t replace one problem with another. Diversity and Distributions. 25, 5-8. (Authors in alphabetical order).

Qiao H, Feng X, Escobar LE, Peterson AT, Soberón J, Zhu G, Papeş M. (2019) An evaluation of transferability of ecological niche models. Ecography. 42, 521-534.

Escobar LE*, Romero-Alvarez D, Larkin DJ, Phelps NBD. (2019) Network analysis to inform invasive species spread among lakes. Journal of Oceanology and Limnology.

2018

Astorga F, Carver S, Almberg ES, Sousa G, Wingfield K, Niedringhaus KD, Van Wick P, Rossi L, Xie Y, Cross P, Angelone S, Gortázar C, Escobar LE*. (2018) International meeting on sarcoptic mange in wildlife. Parasites and Vectors. 11, 449.

Escobar LE*, Escobar-Dodero J, Phelps NBD. (2018) Infectious disease in fish: global risk of viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries. 28, 637-65.

Barros M, Cabezon O, Dubey JP, Almeria S, Ribas M, Escobar LE, Medina-Vogel G. Toxoplasma gondii in the terrestrial/aquatic interface, Southern Chile. PLoS ONE. 13, e0199085.

Astorga F, Escobar LE, Poo-Muñoz DA, Escobar-Dodero J, Rojas-Hucks S, Alvarado-Ryback M, Duclos M, Romero-Alvarez D, Estela-Molina B, Peñafiel A, Toro F, Peña-Gomez, FT, Peterson AT. (2018) Distributional ecology of Andes Hantavirus: A macroecological approach. International Journal of Health Geographics. 17, 22.

Del Valle SY, McMahon BH, Asher J, Hatchett R, Cheever AE, Fang DZ, Lega J, Leany M, Pantazis I, Roberts D, Moore S, Escobar LE, Qiao H, Peterson AT, Hengartner NW, Mukundan H. Summary results of the 2014-2015 DARPA Chikungunya Challenge. BMC Infectious Diseases. 18, 245.

Machado G, Wiblen C, Escobar LE. Potential distribution of Pythium insidiosum in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and projections to neighbor countries. Transboundary Emerging Diseases. In press, doi: 10.1111/tbed.12925.

Escobar LE, Qiao H, Cabello J, Peterson AT. (2018) Ecological niche modeling methods re-examined. A case study with the Darwin’s fox. Ecology and Evolution. 1-14.

Lepe-López M, García-Anleu R, Fountain-Jones N, Craft ME, Ponce G, Gonzalez M, Escobar LE. (2018) Domestic horses within the Maya biosphere reserve: A possible threat to the Central American tapir (Tapirus bairdii). Caldasia. 40, 188-191.

Ryan SJ, Stewart-Ibarra AM, Ordoñez E, Chu W, Finkelstein JL, King CA, Escobar LE, Lupone C, Heras F, Enriquez C, Tauzer E, Waggoner E, James TG, Cardenas W, Polhemus M. (2018). Spatiotemporal variation in environmental Vibrio cholerae in an estuary in southern coastal Ecuador. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 15, 486.

Romero-Alvarez D, Escobar LE. (2018) Oropouche fever, emergent disease for the Americas. Microbes and Infection. 20, 135-146.

2017

Escobar LE*, Mallez S, McCartney M, Lee C, Zielinski DP, Ghosal R, Sorensen PW, Bajer PG, Wagner C, Nash B, Tomamichel M, Venturelli P, Mathai P, Kokotovich A, Escobar-Dodero J, Phelps N. (2017) Aquatic invasive species in the Great Lakes region: An overview. Reviews in Fisheries Science and Aquaculture. 26, 121-138.

de Oliveira SV, Romero-Alvarez D, Rernandes Martins T, Pereira dos Santos J, Labruna MB, Salles Gazeta G, Escobar LE, Gurgel-Gonçalves R. (2017) Amblyomma ticks: Range constriction due to climate change. Acta Tropica. 176, 340-348.

Escobar LE*, Carver S, Romero-Alvarez D, VandeWoude S, Crooks KR, Lappin MR, Craft ME. (2017) Inferring the niche of environmentally transmitted pathogens: Toxoplasma gondii and Bartonella spp. In wild felids. Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 4, 172.

Velasco-Villa A, Escobar LE, Sanchez A, Gallard N, Vargas-Pino F, Gutierrez-Cedillo V, Damon I, Emerson G. (2017) Successful strategies implemented towards the elimination of canine rabies in the Western Hemisphere. Antiviral Research. 143, 1-12.

Qiao H, Escobar LE*, Peterson AT. (2017) Accessible areas in ecological niche comparisons of invasive species: Recognized but still overlooked. Scientific Reports. 7, 1213.

Velasco-Villa A, Mauldin M, Shi M, Escobar LE, Gallardo N, Damon I, Olson V, Streicker D, Emerson G. (2017) The history of rabies in the Western Hemisphere. Antiviral Research. 146, 221-232.

Romero-Alvarez D, Escobar LE. Vegetation loss and the 2016 Oropouche fever outbreak in Peru. Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz. 112, 292-298.

Escobar LE*, Kurath G, Escobar-Dodero J, Craft ME & Phelps NBD (2017) Potential distribution of the Viral Haemorrhagic Septicaemia virus in the Great Lakes region. Journal of Fish Diseases. 40, 11-28.

Qiao H, Escobar LE*, Saupe EE, Ji L & Soberón J (2016) A cautionary note on the use of hypervolume kernel density estimators in ecological niche modelling. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 26, 1066-1070.

Fountain-Jones NM, Pearse WD, Escobar LE, Alba-Calas A, Carver S, Davies TJ, Kraberger S, Papes M, Vandergrift K, Worsley-Tonks K, Craft ME. Towards an eco-phylogenetic framework for infectious disease ecology. Biological Reviews. 93, 950-970.

Romero-Alvarez D, Reyes J, Villacis JE, Sata C, Escobar LE, Quezada V. First case of New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase in Klebsiella pneumoniae from Ecuador: An update for South America. International Journal of Infectious Diseases. 65, 119-121.

Qiao H, Escobar LE*, Saupe EE, Ji J, Soberon J. 2017. Using KDE method to model ecological niches: a response to Blonder et al. (2017) Global Ecology and Biogeography. 26, 1076-1077.

Cuervo-Robayo AP, Escobar LE*, Osorio-Olvera LA, Nori J, Varela S, Martínez-Meyer E, Velásquez-Tibatá J, Rodríguez-Soto C, Munguía M, Castañeda-Álvarez NP, Lira-Noriega A, Soley-Guardia M, Serra-Díaz JM, Peterson AT. Introducción a los análisis espaciales con énfasis en modelos de nicho ecológico. Biodiversity Informatics. 12, 45-57.

Romero-Alvarez D, Escobar LE*, Varela S, Larkin D.J. & Phelps N.B.D. Forecasting distributions of an aquatic invasive species (Nitellopsis obtusa) under future climate scenarios. PLoS ONE. 12, e0180930.

Escobar LE, Qiao H, Lee C, Phelps NBD. 2017 Novel methods in disease biogeography: A case study with heterosporosis. Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 4, 105.

Romero-Alvarez D, Peterson AT, Escobar LE*. Surveillance fatigue (fatigatio vigilantiae) during epidemics. Chilean Journal of Infectology. 4, 289-29.

Escobar LE* (2016) Ecological niche modeling: Five crucial questions. Pan American Journal of Public Health. 40, 98.

2016

Escobar LE* & Craft ME (2016) Advances and limitations of disease biogeography using ecological niche modeling. Frontiers in Microbiology. 7, 1174.

Poo-Muñoz D.A, Elizondo-Patrone C, Escobar LE, Astorga F, Martinez C, Abarca K & Medina-Vogel G (2016) Fleas and ticks in carnivores from a domestic-wildlife interface: Implications for public health and wildlife. Journal of Medical Entomology 53, 1433-1443.

Escobar LE*, Qiao H, Phelps NBD, Wagner CK & Larkin DJ (2016) Realized niche shift associated with the Eurasian charophyte Nitellopsis obtusa becoming invasive in North America. Scientific Reports. 6, 29037.

Escobar LE*, Romero-Alvarez D, Leon R, Lepe-López MA, Craft ME, Borbor-Cordova MJ, Svenning JC (2016) Declining prevalence of disease vectors under climate change. Scientific Reports. 6, 39150.

Peterson AT, Osorio J.E, Qiao H & Escobar LE (2016) Zika virus, elevation, and transmission risk. PLoS Currents Outbreaks. 1, 1–9.

Escobar LE, Qiao H & Peterson AT (2016) Forecasting Chikungunya spread in the Americas via data-driven, empirical approaches. Parasites & Vectors. 9, 112.

Qiao H, Peterson AT, Campbell LP, Soberón J, Ji L & Escobar LE* (2016) NicheA: Creating virtual species and ecological niches in multivariate environmental scenarios. Ecography. 39: 805–813.

2015

Escobar LE, Peterson AT, Favi M, Yung V & Medina-Vogel G (2015) Bat-borne rabies in Latin America. Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo. 57, 63–72.

Escobar LE, Restif O, Yung V, Favi M, Pons DJ & Medina-Vogel G (2015) Spatial and temporal trends of bat-borne rabies in Chile. Epidemiology and Infection. 143, 1486–1494.

Astorga F, Escobar LE, Poo-Munoz DA & Medina-Vogel G (2015) Dog ownership, abundance and potential for bat-borne rabies spillover in Chile. Preventive Veterinary Medicine. 118, 397–405.

Escobar LE, Ryan SJ, Stewart-Ibarra AM, Finkelstein JL, King CA, Qiao H & Polhemus ME (2015) A global map of suitability for coastal Vibrio cholerae under current and future climate conditions. Acta Tropica. 149, 202–211.

Escobar LE, Juarez C, Medina-Vogel G & Gonzales CM (2015) First report on bat mortalities on wind farms in Chile. Gayana. 79, 11–17.

Escobar LE, Yung V, Vargas-Rodríguez R, Medina-Vogel G & Favi M (2015) Wildlife veterinarians rabies vaccination in Chile: A survey. Revista Chilena de Infectología. 32, 289–293.

Escobar LE, Awan MN & Qiao H (2015) Anthropogenic disturbance and habitat loss for the red-listed Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus): Using ecological niche modeling and nighttime light satellite imagery. Biological Conservation. 191, 400–407.

Escobar LE, Peterson AT, Papeş M, Favi M, Yung V, Restif O, Qiao H & Medina-Vogel G (2015) Ecological approaches in veterinary epidemiology: Mapping the risk of bat-borne rabies using vegetation indices and night-time light satellite imagery. Veterinary Research. 46, 92.

Astorga F, Poo-Muñoz DA, Escobar LE & Medina-Vogel G (2015) 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].” Preventive Veterinary Medicine. 120, 248–249.

2014

Astorga F, Poo-Muñoz DA, Escobar LE & Medina-Vogel G (2015) 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].” Preventive Veterinary Medicine. 120, 248–249.

Tocchio L.J, Gurgel-Gonçalves R, Escobar LE & Peterson AT (2014) Niche similarities among white-eared opossums (Mammalia, Didelphidae): Is ecological niche modelling relevant to setting species limits? Zoologica Scripta. 44, 1–10.

Poo- Muñoz D.A, Escobar LE, Peterson AT, Astorga F, Organ JF & Medina-Vogel G (2014) Galictis cuja (Mammalia): An update of current knowledge and geographic distribution. Iheringia. Série Zoologia. 104, 341–346.

Escobar LE, Lira-Noriega A, Medina-Vogel G & Peterson AT (2014) Potential for spread of White-nose fungus (Pseudogymnoascus destructans) in the Americas: Using Maxent and NicheA to assure strict model transference. Geospatial Health. 11, 221–229.

2013

Escobar LE, Peterson AT, Favi M, Yung V, Pons DJ & Medina-Vogel G (2013) Ecology and geography of transmission of two bat-borne rabies lineages in Chile. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 7, e2577.

de Oliveira SV, Escobar LE, Peterson AT & Gurgel-Gonçalves R (2013) Potential geographic distribution of hantavirus reservoirs in Brazil. PLoS ONE. 8, e85137.

Escobar LE* & Peterson AT (2013) Spatial epidemiology of bat-borne rabies in Colombia. Pan American Journal of Public Health. 34, 135–136.

2011

Escobar LE* (2011) Avian flu and Newcastle antibodies in Great-tailed Grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) in Guatemala City. REDVET. 12, 1–8.

Escobar LE*, Álvarez D, Villatoro FJ, Morán D. & Estévez A (2011) Two new flea records from Guatemala: Pulex simulans and Echidnophaga gallinacea (Siphonaptera: Pulicidae), and their host-parasite relationship. Journal of Parasitology and Vector Biology. 3, 40–43.