Modern day population, pathogen and pest dispersals

The anthropogenic translocation of species has been a constant occurrence throughout human history, resulting in the exchange of pathogens and pests. However, only in the last few decades has extensive and regular contact between peoples, flora and fauna from both the Old and New Worlds occurred. The recent increases in speed, reach and volume of modern transport is putting people at risk from the emergence of new strains of familiar diseases on the other side of the planet, and from completely new diseases, while rates of dispersal of both disease vectors and the diseases they carry are increasing. Moreover, this growing global connectivity is increasing the rates of invasive ‘pest’ species arrivals. This chapter describes these modern-day trends and presents case studies that illustrate the effects of growing international connectivity across spatial scales, and how novel digital datasets are increasingly available to help us understand and control some of the negative effects of these dispersals.