Habitat availability alters the relative risk of a bovine tuberculosis breakdown in the aftermath of a commercial forest clearfell disturbance

Murphy, Kilian J.; Morera‐Pujol, Virginia; Ryan, Eoin; Byrne, Andrew; Breslin, Philip; Ciuti, Simone

doi:10.1111/1365-2664.14233

Cited by 11 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(71 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In the era of ‘Global One Health’, the control of zoonotic diseases in domestic animals becomes even more complex when wildlife hosts are involved (Gebreyes et al., 2014; Miller & Olea‐Popelka, 2013). Anthropogenic disturbance of wildlife populations, whether via habitat destruction or human encroachment, is increasingly cited as a source of spill over of novel or endemic pathogens to humans or livestock (Baker et al., 2022; Murphy et al., 2022); culling of wildlife species can appear an attractive option for disease control (Miguel et al., 2020). Zoonotic tuberculosis is an example of such complexity, with epidemics worldwide involving multiple hosts (Miller & Olea‐Popelka, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

European badger (Meles meles) responses to low‐intensity, selective culling: Using mark–recapture and relatedness data to assess social perturbation

Allen

Milne

McCormick

et al. 2022

Ecol Sol and Evidence

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Culling the main wildlife host of bovine tuberculosis in Great Britain (GB) and Ireland, the European badger (Meles meles), has been employed in both territories to reduce infections in cattle. In GB, this has been controversial, with results suggesting that culling induces disturbance to badger social structure, facilitating wider disease dissemination. Previous analyses hypothesized that even very low‐level, selective culling may cause similar deleterious effects by increasing ranging of individuals and greater mixing between social groups. To assess this hypothesis, a novel, prospective, landscape‐scale ‘before‐and‐after’ Test and Vaccinate or Remove (TVR) study was implemented. Test‐positive badgers were culled and test‐negative badgers were Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccinated and released. Mark–recapture metrics of badger ranging and genetic metrics of social group relatedness did not change significantly over the study period. However, selective culling was associated with a localized reduction in social group relatedness in culled groups. Ecological context is important; extrapolation across territories and other disease epidemiological systems (epi‐systems) is likely to be challenging. However, we demonstrate that small‐scale, selective removal of test‐positive badgers was not associated with metrics of increased ranging but was associated with localized changes in social group relatedness. This adds to the evidence base on badger control options for policy makers.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

European badger (Meles meles) responses to low‐intensity, selective culling: Using mark–recapture and relatedness data to assess social perturbation

Allen

Milne

McCormick

et al. 2022

Ecol Sol and Evidence

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Given these initial findings, and the limitations with the current study’s approach, a matched case-control study of Irish farms exposed to forest clearance was developed [ 29 ]. The study design was designed to gain insights into how local ecological conditions modulated bTB risk at various spatio-temporal scales after a clearfell event.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…That study found an association between clearfelling forestry and cattle herd bTB risk; however, the effects could be either positive or negative, dependent on many factors, e.g., the size of the clearfell (in hectares), the distance to the farm, the time elapsed since the clearfell occurred and, perhaps most importantly, the area (in hectares) of natural habitats around the farm, which may act as refugia for wildlife vectors. The changing dynamics of bTB risk over space and time shown by Murphy et al [ 29 ] and the findings of the present study clearly demonstrate the complexity of elucidating disease risk in response to ecological disturbance and highlight the need for these challenges to be approached from multiple different perspectives (e.g., ecological, epidemiological, veterinary science), with different study designs, to build a complete understanding of these processes in order to inform policy and management of the agro-ecological episystem in Ireland.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The bTB-wildlife-cattle episystem (i.e., the whole complement of biological and environmental components of the disease system [ 28 ]) in Ireland is an excellent study case to explore the dynamics of wildlife disease maintenance, spread and spillover to domestic hosts and how it is modulated by landscape disturbance [ 29 ], due to the extensive data available on the disease and the attempts to control infection in both cattle and wildlife [ 30 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Disturbance Ecology Meets Bovine Tuberculosis (bTB) Epidemiology: A Before-and-After Study on the Association between Forest Clearfelling and bTB Herd Risk in Cattle Herds

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Disturbance ecology refers to the study of discrete processes that disrupt the structure or dynamics of an ecosystem. Such processes can, therefore, affect wildlife species ecology, including those that are important pathogen hosts. We report on an observational before-and-after study on the association between forest clearfelling and bovine tuberculosis (bTB) herd risk in cattle herds, an episystem where badgers (Meles meles) are the primary wildlife spillover host. The study design compared herd bTB breakdown risk for a period of 1 year prior to and after exposure to clearfelling across Ireland at sites cut in 2015–2017. The percent of herds positive rose from 3.47% prior to clearfelling to 4.08% after exposure. After controlling for confounders (e.g., herd size, herd type), we found that cattle herds significantly increased their odds of experiencing a bTB breakdown by 1.2-times (95%CIs: 1.07–1.36) up to 1 year after a clearfell risk period. Disturbance ecology of wildlife reservoirs is an understudied area with regards to shared endemic pathogens. Epidemiological observational studies are the first step in building an evidence base to assess the impact of such disturbance events; however, such studies are limited in inferring the mechanism for any changes in risk observed. The current cohort study suggested an association between clearfelling and bTB risk, which we speculate could relate to wildlife disturbance affecting pathogen spillback to cattle, though the study design precludes causal inference. Further studies are required. However, ultimately, integration of epidemiology with wildlife ecology will be important for understanding the underlying mechanisms involved, and to derive suitable effective management proposals, if required.

show abstract

“…Low spatial resolution areal counts are commonly available for wildlife (e.g., number of animals harvested or simply observed for a region, province, county, or other administrative boundary), however these data lack spatial resolution, limiting their use in preference of higher resolution data such as observations from sophisticated tracking devices e.g., GPS, VHF (Thomas et al 2013). Unfortunately, systematic monitoring schemes take time to become established, demand a significant amount of time and financial investment to remain viable, and require careful governance of the programme and curation of the data – facets that often-become barriers to the establishment and continuation of a successful systematic monitoring scheme (Lindenmayer and Likens, 2009; Murphy et al 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bayesian areal disaggregation regression to predict wildlife distribution and relative density with low-resolution data

Murphy

Ciuti

Burkitt

et al. 2023

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For species of conservation concern and human-wildlife conflict, it is imperative that spatial population data are available to design adaptive-management strategies and be prepared to meet challenges such as land use and climate change, disease outbreaks, and invasive species spread. This can be difficult, perhaps impossible, if spatially explicit wildlife data are not available. Low-resolution areal counts, however, are common in wildlife monitoring, i.e., number of animals reported for a region, usually corresponding to administrative subdivisions, e.g., region, province, county, departments, or cantons. Bayesian areal disaggregation regression is a solution to exploit areal counts and provide conservation biologists with high-resolution species distribution predictive models. This method originated in epidemiology but lacks experimentation in ecology. It provides a plethora of applications to change the way we collect and analyse data for wildlife populations. Based on high-resolution environmental rasters, the disaggregation method disaggregates the number of individuals observed in a region and distributes them at the pixel level (e.g., 5x5 km or finer resolution), therefore converting the low-resolution data into high-resolution distribution and indices of relative density. In our demonstrative study, we disaggregated areal count data from hunting bag returns to disentangle the changing distribution and population dynamics of three deer species (red, sika and fallow) in Ireland from 2000 to 2018. We show an application of Bayesian areal disaggregation regression method and document marked increases in relative population density and extensive range expansion for each of the three deer species across Ireland. We challenged our disaggregated model predictions by correlating them with independent deer surveys carried out in field sites and alternative deer distribution models built using presence-only and presence-absence data. Finding high correlation with both independent datasets, we highlighted the accurate ability of Bayesian areal disaggregation regression to capture fine scale spatial patterns of animal distribution. This study opens new scenarios for wildlife managers and conservation biologists to reliably use regional count data disregarded so far in species distribution modelling. Thus, representing a step forward in our ability to monitor wildlife population and meet challenges in our changing world.

show abstract

Habitat availability alters the relative risk of a bovine tuberculosis breakdown in the aftermath of a commercial forest clearfell disturbance

Cited by 11 publications

References 57 publications

European badger (Meles meles) responses to low‐intensity, selective culling: Using mark–recapture and relatedness data to assess social perturbation

European badger (Meles meles) responses to low‐intensity, selective culling: Using mark–recapture and relatedness data to assess social perturbation

Disturbance Ecology Meets Bovine Tuberculosis (bTB) Epidemiology: A Before-and-After Study on the Association between Forest Clearfelling and bTB Herd Risk in Cattle Herds

Bayesian areal disaggregation regression to predict wildlife distribution and relative density with low-resolution data

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About