Global trends in infectious diseases at the wildlife–livestock interface

The role and significance of wildlife–livestock interfaces in disease ecology has largely been neglected, despite recent interest in animals as origins of emerging diseases in humans. Scoping review methods were applied to objectively assess the relative interest by the scientific community in infectious diseases at interfaces between wildlife and livestock, to characterize animal species and regions involved, as well as to identify trends over time. An extensive literature search combining wildlife, livestock, disease, and geographical search terms yielded 78,861 publications, of which 15,998 were included in the analysis. Publications dated from 1912 to 2013 and showed a continuous increasing trend, including a shift from parasitic to viral diseases over time. In particular there was a significant increase in publications on the artiodactyls–cattle and bird–poultry interface after 2002 and 2003, respectively. These trends could be traced to key disease events that stimulated public interest and research funding. Among the top 10 diseases identified by this review, the majority were zoonoses. Prominent wildlife–livestock interfaces resulted largely from interaction between phylogenetically closely related and/or sympatric species. The bird–poultry interface was the most frequently cited wildlife–livestock interface worldwide with other interfaces reflecting regional circumstances. This review provides the most comprehensive overview of research on infectious diseases at the wildlife–livestock interface to date

Behavioural ecology at the spatial–social interface

Spatial and social behaviour are fundamental aspects of an animal's biology, and their social and spatial environments are indelibly linked through mutual causes and shared consequences. We define the 'spatial-social interface' as intersection of social and spatial aspects of individuals' phenotypes and environments. Behavioural variation at the spatial-social interface has implications for ecological and evolutionary processes including pathogen transmission, population dynamics, and the evolution of social systems. We link spatial and social processes through a foundation of shared theory, vocabulary, and methods. We provide examples and future directions for the integration of spatial and social behaviour and environments. We introduce key concepts and approaches that either implicitly or explicitly integrate social and spatial processes, for example, graph theory, density-dependent habitat selection, and niche specialization. Finally, we discuss how movement ecology helps link the spatial-social interface. Our review integrates social and spatial behavioural ecology and identifies testable hypotheses at the spatial-social interface

Extending an eco-evolutionary understanding of biofilm-formation at the air-liquid interface to community biofilms

Growing bacterial populations diversify to produce a number of competing lineages. In the Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 model system, Wrinkly Spreader mutant lineages, capable of colonising the air-liquid interface of static microcosms by biofilm-formation, rapidly appear in diversifying populations with a fitness advantage over the ancestral wild-type strain. Similarly, a biofilm is rapidly produced by a community containing many biofilm-competent members, and selection by serial transfer of biofilm samples across microcosms results in a gradually changing community structure. Both the adaptive radiation producing Wrinkly Spreaders and the succession of biofilm communities in these static microcosms can be understood through evolutionary ecology in which ecological interactions and evolutionary processes are combined. Such eco-evolutionary dynamics are especially important for bacteria, as rapid growth, high population densities and strong selection in the context of infections can lead to fast changes in disease progression and resistance phenotypes, while similar changes in community function may also affect many microbially-mediated biotechnological and industrial processes. Evolutionary ecology provides an understanding of why bacterial biofilms are so prevalent and why they are such a successful colonisation strategy, and it can be directly linked to molecular analyses to understand the importance of pathways and responses involved in biofilm-formation

From Ecosystem Ecology to Landscape Ecology: a Progression Calling for a Well-founded Research and Appropriate Disillusions

In this paper, 1) a delineation of main theoretical, methodological and applicative issues of landscape ecology, 2) a comparison between landscape and ecosystem ecology, 3) a critical overview of actual limits of landscape ecology, are depicted. We conclude that: a) from a theoretical viewpoint, ecosystem and landscape ecology differ since they deal with ecological topics having very different spatial and temporal scales, b) from a practical standpoint, they deal with dissimilar purposes emerging both from unlike research scales and different approaches, as the interest of landscape ecology is mainly focused on the whole ecological mosaic rather than on single components, in this view assuming an "horizontal" ecological perspective, c) transdisciplinarity is still a work in progress in landscape ecology, d) several research purposes in landscape ecology are far from being reached, e) a bridge lacks between the "horizontal" perspective adopted from landscape ecology and the "vertical" approach distinctive of ecosystem ecology, therefore, they actually behave as detached disciplines. However, in our vision, landscape ecology contains the seeds for becoming a self-contained scientific discipline as well as the interface among the distinct sectors of environmental research and planning

Networks and Knowledge at the Interface Governing the Coast of East Kalimantan

The thesis explores the actual processes of interaction between global and local actors regarding marine conservation and aquaculture development. The objective of the thesis is to analyse the collaboration, friction, and the cultural-historical, social, political, and economic contestations of the value and meaning of conservation from the perspectives of the district governmental agencies, the district head, local entrepreneurs and industry, and the International NGO. Concentrating on the dynamics of this global-local interface this thesis adds to existing literature because it helps us to understand why global environmental networks often face contention and even fail to be effective in their attempts to implement regulations or standards for a more sustainable production of coastal resources. The data were gathered during long-term anthropological fieldwork combining a political-ecology approach with environmental anthropology

Ecology of Predation and Scavenging and the Interface

Predation and scavenging are pervasive ecological interactions in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. The ecology, evolution and conservation of predators and scavengers have received wide scientific attention and public awareness. However, the close connection that exists between predation and scavenging has not been emphasized until very recently. The recognition that carnivorous animals may obtain meat by either hunting prey or scavenging their carcasses has profound implications from individual behavior to population, community and ecosystem levels. However, many relevant questions still remain unexplored. This book deals with some of these questions, with the final aim to definitively dismiss the traditional view that predation and scavenging are disconnected ecological processes. This compendium of science may help to inspire ecologists, evolutionary biologists, paleontologists, anthropologists, epidemiologists, forensic scientists, anatomists, and, of course, conservation biologists in their stimulating and promising endeavor of achieving a more comprehensive understanding of carnivory in a rapidly changing world

Ecological Invasion, Roughened Fronts, and a Competitor's Extreme Advance: Integrating Stochastic Spatial-Growth Models

Both community ecology and conservation biology seek further understanding of factors governing the advance of an invasive species. We model biological invasion as an individual-based, stochastic process on a two-dimensional landscape. An ecologically superior invader and a resident species compete for space preemptively. Our general model includes the basic contact process and a variant of the Eden model as special cases. We employ the concept of a "roughened" front to quantify effects of discreteness and stochasticity on invasion; we emphasize the probability distribution of the front-runner's relative position. That is, we analyze the location of the most advanced invader as the extreme deviation about the front's mean position. We find that a class of models with different assumptions about neighborhood interactions exhibit universal characteristics. That is, key features of the invasion dynamics span a class of models, independently of locally detailed demographic rules. Our results integrate theories of invasive spatial growth and generate novel hypotheses linking habitat or landscape size (length of the invading front) to invasion velocity, and to the relative position of the most advanced invader.Comment: The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com/content/8528v8563r7u2742