Disease threats to tigers and their prey

Abstract

The contraction of the global tiger population over the last 100 years into small, often isolated subpopulations has made them increasingly vulnerable to the impact of disease. Despite this, the health of wild tigers continues to be insufficiently funded and explored. For example, canine distemper virus (CDV), has been associated with localized declines and increased risk of extinction, and yet has received little research attention in most tiger range countries. The emergence of new pathogenic threats has posed fresh challenges, including African swine fever virus (ASFV), which has the potential to devastate wild boar populations, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV2) with implications for tiger conservation that remain unknown. The objective of this review is to synthesize current research on the health of tigers and their prey that impacts the conservation of tigers in the wild. Published sources are interpreted based on three mechanisms through which disease can affect the viability of tiger populations: (1) by reducing the survival of adult tigers, (2) by reducing breeding productivity, and (3) by reducing the carrying capacity of tiger habitat through decreased prey abundance. Examples of CDV, SARS-CoV2, carnivore protoparvovirus 1 and ASFV are used to illustrate these processes and inform discussion of research and mitigation priorities.

Case report: Lumpy skin disease in an endangered wild banteng (Bos javanicus) and initiation of a vaccination campaign in domestic livestock in Cambodia

“…Direct vaccination of critically endangered wildlife is generally a last resort option. However, a canine distemper virus (CDV) vaccine was administered to foxes in Santa Catalina Island in California to successfully reestablish their population following a CDV outbreak thought to be spread by domestic dogs ( 28 ) and has been identified as a means of mitigating CDV risk to tiger populations in Asia ( 29 ).…”

Effects of spontaneous mutations on survival and reproduction ofDrosophila serratainfected with Drosophila C virus

“…Pathogens are ubiquitous, with the fitness costs they impose on individual hosts (Price 1980) requiring economically costly interventions (Savary et al 2019; Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborators 2022) and potentially contributing to the loss of biodiversity (Smith et al 2006; Preece et al 2017; Gilbert et al 2023). Heritable differences in these fitness costs among host individuals has led to the evolution of diverse host defences (Medzhitov et al 2012; Pereira et al 2023), and strong signatures of selection on immune function genes (Mukherjee et al 2014; Shultz and Sackton 2019; Gouy and Excoffier 2020; Larragy et al 2023).…”