Wildlife

Mycobacterium bovis, a member of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) and non-tuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM), may infect wild and domestic mammals, including humans. Although cattle are the main hosts and spreaders of M. bovis, many wildlife hosts play an important role worldwide. In Argentina, wild boar and domestic pigs are considered important links in mammalian tuberculosis (mTB) transmission. The aim of this work was to investigate the presence of M. bovis in wild pigs from different regions of Argentina, to characterize isolates of M...

White-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus Zimmermann (Artiodactyla: Cervidae), are the primary wildlife host for adult stages of blacklegged ticks (Acari: Ixodidae: Ixodes scapularis Say) and an important host for lone star ticks (Acari: Ixodidae: Amblyomma americanum Linnaeus), both of which are vectors of numerous tick-borne pathogens. The 4-poster passive deer treatment device is a topical, host-targeted method to control free-living tick populations and has been proven to successfully reduce tick abundance in several states...

Disease cross-transmission between wild and domestic ungulates can negatively impact livelihoods and wildlife conservation. In Pin valley, migratory sheep and goats share pastures seasonally with the resident Asiatic ibex ( Capra sibirica ), leading to potential disease cross-transmission. Focussing on gastro-intestinal nematodes (GINs) as determinants of health in ungulates, we hypothesized that infection on pastures would increase over summer from contamination by migrating livestock. Consequently, interventions in livestock that are well-timed should reduce infection pressure for ibex...

Surveillance data collected in the period 2017-20 for Brucella spp. in wildlife of the Lombardy Region in northern Italy were used to describe the exposure of the wildlife species to Brucella spp. in wild boar (Sus scrofa), European brown hare (Lepus europaeus), fallow deer (Dama dama), red deer (Cervus elaphus), and roe deer (Capreolus capreolus). Among the tested species, wild boar (n=6,440) showed the highest percentage of seropositive samples (5.9%). Notably, wild boars of perifluvial area of the Po River showed higher percentages of positivity than those of the pre-Alpine district...

The East African mountain ecosystems are facing increasing threats due to global change, putting their unique socio-ecological systems at risk. To monitor and understand these changes, researchers and stakeholders require accessible analysis-ready remote sensing data. Although satellite data is available for many applications, it often lacks accurate geometric orientation and has extensive cloud cover. This can generate misleading results and make it unreliable for time-series analysis. Therefore, it needs comprehensive processing before usage, which encompasses multi-step operations, requiring large computational and storage capacities, as well as expert knowledge...

The widespread transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in humans poses a serious threat to public health security, and a growing number of studies have discovered that SARS-CoV-2 infection in wildlife and mutate over time. This article mainly reports the first systematic review and meta-analysis of the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in wildlife. The pooled prevalence of the 29 included articles was calculated by us using a random effects model (22.9%) with a high heterogeneity (I2 =98.7%, p=0.00). Subgroup analysis and univariate regression analysis found potential risk factors contributing to heterogeneity were country, wildlife species, sample type, longitude, and precipitation...

Anthropogenic noise is a global pollutant but its potential impacts on early life-stages in fishes are largely unknown. Here, using controlled laboratory experiments, we tested for impacts of continuous or intermittent exposure to low-frequency broadband noise on early life-stages of the common goby (Pomatoschistus microps), a marine fish with exclusive paternal care. Neither continuous nor intermittent noise exposure had an effect on filial cannibalism, showing that males were capable and willing to care for their broods...

An ambitious U.S. project aims to sample more than 50 animal species to clarify how the COVID-19 virus moves between people and wildlife.

Lyme disease is the most common wildlife-to-human transmitted disease reported in North America. The study of this disease requires an understanding of the ecology of the complex communities of ticks and host species involved in harboring and transmitting this disease. Much of the ecology of this system is well understood, such as the life cycle of ticks, and how hosts are able to support tick populations and serve as disease reservoirs, but there is much to be explored about how the population dynamics of different host species and communities impact disease risk to humans...

Hemorrhagic disease (HD) of deer is caused by epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV) or bluetongue virus (BTV) and is considered one of the most important viral diseases of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Despite evidence of changing patterns of HD in the northeastern and upper midwestern US, the historical and current patterns of HD in the Great Plains remain poorly described. We used results from an annual survey documenting HD mortality to characterize historic and current patterns of HD in the northern and central Great Plains (North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma), US, between 1982 and 2020...

Major advancements in ecology and biodiversity conservation have been made thanks to methods for marking and individually tracking animals. Marking animals is both widely used and controversial due to the potential consequences for animal welfare, which are often incompletely evaluated prior to implementation. Two outstanding knowledge gaps concerning the welfare consequences of individual marking are their short-term behavioural impacts and the relative impacts from marking versus the handling of animals while carrying out procedures...

BACKGROUND: Declines in biodiversity and ecosystem health due to climate change are raising urgent concerns. In response, large-scale multispecies monitoring programmes are being implemented that increasingly adopt sensor-based approaches such as acoustic recording. These approaches rely heavily on ecological data science. However, developing reliable algorithms for processing sensor-based data relies heavily on labelled datasets of sufficient quality and quantity. We present a dataset of 1,575 dawn chorus soundscape recordings, 141 being fully annotated (n = 32,994 annotations) with avian, mammalian and amphibian vocalisations...

Protected areas are traditionally the foundation of conservation strategy, but land not formally protected is of particular importance for the conservation of large carnivores because of their typically wide-ranging nature. In South Africa, leopard (Panthera pardus) population decreases are thought to be occurring in areas of human development and intense negative interactions, but research is biased towards protected areas, with quantitative information on population sizes and trends in non-protected areas severely lacking...

The Queensland Shark Control Program (QSCP) started in 1962 to reduce the number of shark-human incidents by deploying nets and drumlines across the most popular beaches. The program targets large shark species (white, tiger and bull sharks) that are potentially hazardous to bathers. However, this strategy is lethal for other sharks and marine wildlife, including threatened and endangered species. Thus, finding non-lethal strategies is a priority. To better manage human-shark interactions, establishing a better understanding of the factors that drive shark movement is key...

Leishmania infantum is an important and neglected vector-borne zoonotic protozoa endemic in the Mediterranean basin. Several wild and domestic mammals can contribute to maintaining its circulation but their importance as effective reservoirs is still under discussion and varies depending on local ecological communities. By combining environmental, climatic, and individual information, this study assessed the presence of L. infantum DNA in a set of wild species from Northwestern Italy and the potential ecological factors related to the risk of infection...

We report tracking of bacterial skin microbiota for two bare-nosed wombats (Vombatus ursinus) following in situ treatment for sarcoptic mange. Sarcoptes scabiei, the etiologic agent, has dramatic effects on skin microbiota. Our case reports show differing disease trajectory and bacterial beta diversity between the two treated individuals.

Ornithologic study skins are specimens of avian skins that have been preserved by drying after removing the viscera and muscle. Because of the high value of study skins for scientific studies, specimens are shared among researchers. There is concern that study skins might be contaminated with high-consequence diseases such as highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) or Newcastle disease virus (NDV). To mitigate risk, thermal or chemical treatment of study skins may be required before transfer; however, such treatments might damage the specimens...

We evaluated antibodies against Leptospira spp. in both free-living and captive Caiman latirostris from Atlantic Forest, and free-living Caiman yacare from Pantanal, Brazil, by using a microscopic agglutination test. Overall seropositivity was 17%, with rates of 36% in captive C. latirostris (n=4/11) and 18% in free-living C. yacare (n=4/22).

Amazon River dolphins are an important flagship species in the Anavilhanas National Park, Brazil, where they interact with visitors. This study aimed to quantify and identify fungi isolated from dolphin skin and oral samples and their surrounding environment in this unique ecosystem. Samples were collected from three dolphins and water samples from Flutuante dos Botos and the Novo Airão city harbor. Fungi were isolated using culture media and identified through micromorphology assays and ITS region sequencing...

Ecosystems, biodiversity, and the human population all depend on a quality or uncontaminated environment. Quality environment provides people and wildlife access to nutrition, medications, dietary supplements, and other ecosystem services. The conservation of biodiversity-that is, species richness, abundance, heredities, and diversity-as well as the control of climate change are facilitated by such an uncontaminated environment. However, these advantages are jeopardized by newly emerging environmental chemical contaminants (EECCs) brought on by increased industrialization and urbanization...