Nonlinear effect of climate on plague during the third pandemic in China

Lei Xu; Qiyong Liu; Leif Chr Stige; Tamara Ben Ari; Xiye Fang; Kung-Sik Chan; Shuchun Wang; Nils Chr Stenseth; Zhibin Zhang

doi:10.1073/pnas.1019486108

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Nonlinear effect of climate on plague during the third pandemic in China

Journal article

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Nonlinear effect of climate on plague during the third pandemic in China

Lei Xu, Qiyong Liu, Leif Chr Stige, Tamara Ben Ari, Xiye Fang, Kung-Sik Chan, Shuchun Wang, Nils Chr Stenseth and Zhibin Zhang

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, Vol.108(25), pp.10214-10219

2011

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1019486108

PMCID: PMC3121851

PMID: 21646523

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Abstract

Over the years, plague has caused a large number of deaths worldwide and subsequently changed history, not the least during the period of the Black Death. Of the three plague pandemics, the third is believed to have originated in China. Using the spatial and temporal human plague records in China from 1850 to 1964, we investigated the association of human plague intensity (plague cases per year) with proxy data on climate condition (specifically an index for dryness/wetness). Our modeling analysis demonstrates that the responses of plague intensity to dry/wet conditions were different in northern and southern China. In northern China, plague intensity generally increased when wetness increased, for both the current and the previous year, except for low intensity during extremely wet conditions in the current year (reflecting a dome-shaped response to current-year dryness/wetness). In southern China, plague intensity generally decreased when wetness increased, except for high intensity during extremely wet conditions of the current year. These opposite effects are likely related to the different climates and rodent communities in the two parts of China: In northern China (arid climate), rodents are expected to respond positively to high precipitation, whereas in southern China (humid climate), high precipitation is likely to have a negative effect. Our results suggest that associations between human plague intensity and precipitation are nonlinear: positive in dry conditions, but negative in wet conditions.

Life Sciences

Details

Title: Subtitle: Nonlinear effect of climate on plague during the third pandemic in China
Creators: Lei Xu - Chinese Academy of Sciences
Qiyong Liu - Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Leif Chr Stige - Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis
Tamara Ben Ari - Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis
Xiye Fang - Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Kung-Sik Chan - University of Iowa [Iowa City]
Shuchun Wang - Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Nils Chr Stenseth - Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis
Zhibin Zhang - Chinese Academy of Sciences
Contributors: Migration ProdInra (Editor)
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, Vol.108(25), pp.10214-10219
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1019486108
PMID: 21646523
PMCID: PMC3121851
NLM abbreviation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
ISSN: 0027-8424
eISSN: 1091-6490
Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
Language: English
Date published: 2011
Academic Unit: Statistics and Actuarial Science; Radiology
Record Identifier: 9983985949802771

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