Impacts of Human Disturbance in Marine Mammals: Do Behavioral Changes Translate to Disease Consequences?

Abstract

Humans have been altering wildlife habitats and wildlife behavior worldwide at an accel-erated pace in recent decades. While it is well-understood how human-induced behavioralchanges affect infectious disease risk in terrestrial wildlife, less is known in marine life. Herewe examine this link in marine mammal populations by (1) conducting a systematic literaturereview to determine how human disturbances change marine mammal behavior in ways thatcan impact disease spread, and (2) examining how these behavioral changes might influencepotential epidemics using a mathematical modeling framework. We find that human distur-bances can influence marine mammal behavior in a way that increases their exposure andsusceptibility to pathogens, as well as their infectivity, or ability to effectively shed pathogensand infect conspecifics. When these changes to exposure, susceptibility, and infectivity are ap-plied in four different marine mammal case studies, epidemics are predicted to be larger andmore likely to occur. Considering the rate at which human disturbance is increasing in themarine environment, and the large number of marine mammal species that are endangered oron the verge of extinction, we advocate for the careful consideration of the direct and indirectimpact of human disturbance on marine mammal health