Life Sciences Commons^™

Parsing The Effects Of Demography, Climate, And Management On Recurrent Brucellosis Outbreaks In Elk, Gavin C. Cotterill, Paul C. Cross, Jerod A. Merkle, Jared D. Rogerson, Brandon M. Scurlock, Johan T. Du Toit

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Zoonotic pathogens can harm human health and wellbeing directly or by impacting livestock. Pathogens that spillover from wildlife can also impair conservation efforts if humans perceive wildlife as pests. Brucellosis, caused by the bacterium Brucella abortus, circulates in elk and bison herds of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and poses a risk to cattle and humans. Our goal was to understand the relative effects of climatic drivers, host demography, and management control programs on disease dynamics.

Using > 20 years of serologic, demographic, and environmental data on brucellosis in elk, we built stochastic compartmental models to assess the influences of climate forcing, …

Parsing The Effects Of Demography, Climate And Management On Recurrent Brucellosis Outbreaks In Elk, Gavin C. Cotterill, Paul C. Cross, Jerod A. Merkle, Jared D. Rogerson, Brandon M. Scurlock, Johan T. Du Toit

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

1. Zoonotic pathogens can harm human health and well‐being directly or by impacting livestock. Pathogens that spillover from wildlife can also impair conservation efforts if humans perceive wildlife as pests. Brucellosis, caused by the bacterium Brucella abortus, circulates in elk and bison herds of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and poses a risk to cattle and humans. Our goal was to understand the relative effects of climatic drivers, host demography and management control programmes on disease dynamics.
2. Using >20 years of serologic, demographic and environmental data on brucellosis in elk, we built stochastic compartmental models to assess the influences of climate forcing, …

Hidden Cost Of Disease In A Free-Ranging Ungulate: Brucellosis Reduces Mid-Winter Pregnancy In Elk, Gavin C. Cotterill, Paul C. Cross, Arthur D. Middleton, Jared D. Rogerson, Brandon M. Scurlock, Johan T. Du Toit

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Demonstrating disease impacts on the vital rates of free‐ranging mammalian hosts typically requires intensive, long‐term study. Evidence for chronic pathogens affecting reproduction but not survival is rare, but has the potential for wide‐ranging effects. Accurately quantifying disease‐associated reductions in fecundity is important for advancing theory, generating accurate predictive models, and achieving effective management. We investigated the impacts of brucellosis (Brucella abortus) on elk (Cervus canadensis) productivity using serological data from over 6,000 captures since 1990 in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, USA. Over 1,000 of these records included known age and pregnancy status. Using Bayesian multilevel models, …

Winter Feeding Of Elk In The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem And Its Effects On Disease Dynamics, Gavin C. Cotterill, Paul C. Cross, Erik K. Cole, Rebecca K. Fuda, Jared D. Rogerson, Brandon M. Scurlock, Johan T. Du Toit

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Providing food to wildlife during periods when natural food is limited results in aggregations that may facilitate disease transmission. This is exemplified in western Wyoming where institutional feeding over the past century has aimed to mitigate wildlife–livestock conflict and minimize winter mortality of elk (Cervus canadensis). Here we review research across 23 winter feedgrounds where the most studied disease is brucellosis, caused by the bacterium Brucella abortus. Traditional veterinary practices (vaccination, test-and-slaughter) have thus far been unable to control this disease in elk, which can spill over to cattle. Current disease-reduction efforts are being guided by ecological …

“One Health” Or Three? Publication Silos Among The One Health Disciplines, Kezia R. Manlove, Josephine G. Walker, Meggan E. Craft, Kathryn P. Huyvaert, Maxwell B. Joseph, Ryan S. Miller, Pauline Nol, Kelly A. Patyk, Daniel O'Brien, Daniel P. Walsh, Paul C. Cross

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

The One Health initiative is a global effort fostering interdisciplinary collaborations to address challenges in human, animal, and environmental health. While One Health has received considerable press, its benefits remain unclear because its effects have not been quantitatively described. We systematically surveyed the published literature and used social network analysis to measure interdisciplinarity in One Health studies constructing dynamic pathogen transmission models. The number of publications fulfilling our search criteria increased by 14.6% per year, which is faster than growth rates for life sciences as a whole and for most biology subdisciplines. Surveyed publications clustered into three communities: one used …