Principles and Mechanisms of Wildlife Population Persistence in the Face of Disease

Abstract

Emerging infectious diseases can result in species declines and hamper recovery efforts for at-risk populations. Generalizing considerations for reducing the risk of pathogen introduction and mitigating the effects of disease remains challenging and inhibits our ability to provide guidance for species recovery planning. Given the growing rates of emerging pathogens globally, we identify key principles and mechanisms for maintaining sustainable populations in the face of emerging diseases (including minimizing the risk of pathogen introductions and their future effects on hosts). Our synthesis serves as a reference for minimizing the risk of future disease outbreaks, mitigating the deleterious effects of future disease outbreaks on species extinction risk, and a review of the theoretical and/or empirical examples supporting these considerations.

Selection and demography drive range-wide patterns of MHC-DRB variation in mule deer

“…Understanding the relative effects of natural selection and demography at functionally important immune genes in wildlife is increasingly important as emerging epizootic and zoonotic diseases threaten animal and human health [ 67 , 68 ]. Our comparative analysis of range-wide variation at the MHC and neutral microsatellite loci in a widespread and mobile species adds much to the developing picture of how evolutionary mechanisms work collectively to shape allelic variation at a broad scale.…”

Microbial ecology and evolution is key to pandemics: using the coronavirus model to mitigate future public health challenges

“…Pre- surveillance outbreaks should be harmonized in different health, agricultural, and forestry sectors. People with regular contact with animals related to their occupation and livelihood and patients having one symptom or another should be screened and included as cost-effective surveillance to identify novel microbe spillovers ( Russell et al 2020 ). Research institutes should be able to collaborate and screen animals, both domestic and wildlife; and people, to isolate and characterize the genetic sequence of organisms, high-risk human populations with cell-mediated immunity responses and antibodies to wildlife-origin as well as the risk factors in human behaviors and biotic environment ( Bozzuto, Schmidt, and Canessa 2020 ).…”

Context‐dependent variation in persistence of host populations in the face of disease

“…Quantifying interpopulation variation within species in response to disease is crucial to identifying vulnerability, understanding mechanisms behind population persistence and in targeting management actions (Brannelly et al, 2021;Russell et al, 2020). An approach that integrates ecological (Joseph et al, 2013) and evolutionary concepts (Valenzuela-Sánchez et al, 2021;Vander Wal et al, 2014) can increase our understanding of host-pathogen interactions and provide a refined vantage point from which to view a system and develop conservation actions.…”