Benny Borremans, with whom we have been collaborating for a few years now, has been awarded a Marie-Curie fellowship. More information is provided below. Title: Spillover of Leptospira in island populations of the Channel Island fox Keywords: Leptospirosis, emerging infectious diseases, cross-species transmission, zoonosis, marine- terrestrial transmission, island ecology Abstract: Spillover, or cross-species transmission, of pathogens from wildlife to humans is the major cause of emerging infectious diseases such as HIV, Ebola virus or SARS. Yet despite this relevance spillover as a natural process is little known, and there is a pressing need for general theory on spillover. We propose to develop a new conceptual framework for spillover, by using an interdisciplinary approach to analyse an exceptionally complete dataset of Leptospira spillover from California sea lions to endangered Channel Island…