Peter Stuart

Research Interests

I am primarily interested in wildlife disease ecology. I study this from a direct conservation approach looking at endangered species but also investigate the processes occurring that result in animals becoming more susceptible to infection and pathology. I mainly study this in mammals (orangutans, carnivores and small mammals). Central to my research is trying to understand who is getting infected and why.

Current Projects

I am a Marie Sklodowska-Curie research fellow leading the project INVASIMMUN which follows up on results from my Irish Research Council fellowship entitled “The hidden faces of a biological invasion: parasite dynamics and immunogenetics of invaders and natives”
A unique opportunity, to study the processes involved in Emerging Infectious Diseases, currently exists in Ireland due to the introduction of the bank vole (Myodes glareolus), via Germany in the 1920’s. The continuing range expansion of the bank vole within Ireland presents a natural large scale perturbation experiment. This combined with the fact that much is already known about the parasites of bank voles, makes this an ideal and rare system to study the factors that influence the invasion process. In particular, we investigate variations in parasite dynamics throughout the bank vole’s range, with particular focus on where voles are currently establishing. Furthermore, the project address how the vole’s immunological gene expression is adapting to their range expansion by conducting a spatiotemporal study.

Selected publications

Kristian M Forbes, Heikki Henttonen, Varpu Hirvelä-Koski, Anja Kipar, Tapio Mappes, Peter Stuart, Otso Huitu: Food provisioning alters infection dynamics in populations of a wild rodent. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 09/2015; 282(1816). DOI:10.1098/rspb.2015.1939 link

Kristian M. Forbes, Peter Stuart, Tapio Mappes, Heikki Henttonen, Otso Huitu: Food resources and intestinal parasites as limiting factors for boreal vole populations during winter. Ecology 11/2014; 95(11-11):3139-3148. DOI:10.1890/13-2381.1link

Kristian M Forbes, Peter Stuart, Tapio Mappes, Katrine S Hoset, Heikki Henttonen, Otso Huitu: Diet Quality Limits Summer Growth of Field Vole Populations. PLoS ONE 03/2014; 9(3):e91113. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0091113 link

Peter Stuart, Olwen Golden, Annetta Zintl, Theo de Waal, Grace Mulcahy, Elaine McCarthy, Colin Lawton: A coprological survey of parasites of wild carnivores in Ireland. Parasitology Research 07/2013; 112(10). DOI:10.1007/s00436-013-3544-7 link

Peter Stuart, Annetta Zintl, Theo DE Waal, Grace Mulcahy, Conall Hawkins, Colin Lawton: Investigating the role of wild carnivores in the epidemiology of bovine neosporosis. Parasitology 10/2012; 140(3):1-7. DOI:10.1017/S0031182012001588 link

For a full list of papers see Google Scholar