Anthropogenic impacts on pathogen outcomes of our wild neighbors and closest companions

The rapid global conversion of natural habitat to built environments create corridors that facilitate cross-species transmission at the human–domestic animal–wildlife interface. Understanding pathogen outcomes of animals that live directly at this interface will provide insight into the transmission dynamics of pathogens that pose risk to companion animals, wildlife, and humans. This dissertation is comprised of two sections where I study pathogen outcomes in two groups of animals that live directly alongside humans: wildlife that live in anthropogenic structures (e.g., buildings, bridges, homes, and tunnels, etc.) and companion animals. In the first section, I create a novel database of anthropogenic roosting ecology in bats to identify ecological and evolutionary determinants of anthropogenic roosting ability. I then assess the importance of this ability in predicting viral outcomes using a machine learning approach. In the second section of this dissertation, I utilize veterinary diagnostic reports to evaluate the influence of climactic and land use factors on vector-borne pathogen exposure risk in canines.