PastoralScape : an environment-driven model of vaccination decision making within pastoralist groups in East Africa

Economic and cultural resilience among pastoralists in East Africa is threatened by the interconnected forces of climate change and contagious diseases spread. A key factor in the resilience of livestock dependent communities is human decision making regarding vaccination against preventable diseases such as Rift Valley fever and Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia. The relationship between healthy and productive livestock and economic development of poor households and communities is mediated by human decision making. This paper describes a coupled human and natural systems agent-based model that focuses on One Health. Disease propagation and animal nutritional health are driven by historical GIS data that captures changes in foraging condition. The results of a series of experiments are presented that demonstrate the sensitivity of a transformed Random Field Ising Model of human decision making to changes in human memory and rationality parameters. Results presented communicate that convergence in the splitting of households between vaccinating or not is achieved for combinations of memory and rationality. The interaction of these cognition parameters with public information and social networks of opinions is detailed. This version of the PastoralScape model is intended to form the basis upon which richer economic and human factor models can be built. © 2021, University of Surrey. All rights reserved

Dairy cow mortality

2010 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.Dairy cow mortality levels in the United States are excessive and increasing over time. This is both a financial concern and an important animal welfare issue. Summary studies of dairy cow removal have been in the literature for decades although information specifically related to dairy cow mortality has been sparse. Even though the increase in dairy cow mortality has generated concern within the industry, the reality is that there is no standard by which to define what might be considered the 'natural' or 'normal' level of mortality in dairy cow production. No evidence suggests that there is any one thing that has led to the rise in mortality and that could be reversed to lower death rates. Rather, numerous agents (influential persons, places, or things) apparently act in concert to influence specific outcomes that may lead to death. The "agents" intimated to be responsible for increasing mortality have been primarily described through the analysis of associations between mortality levels and descriptors such as days postpartum, parity, herd size, and genetics. Such analyses may provide a means for understanding populations at risk but can only illustrate broad principles related to manageable risk factors, potential mitigation procedures, or specific pathologic outcomes. Other studies have attempted to define individual occurrences of death based on the final outcome. Rather than looking at population levels of diseases and associated levels of death, these studies have focused on the pathophysiologic or anatomic descriptions of specific deaths. Such analyses fail to account for the non-biologic unconstrained inputs such as management and environmental factors that ultimately set a pathologic sequence in motion within an at-risk population. Ultimately, with regard to excessive and increasing dairy mortality the difficulty lies in defining the problem (establishing what distinguishes farms with higher death rates from those with more desirable rates) and locating the problem (finding where the trouble really lies within the complex of causal networks on a dairy). This leads to the problem of identifying the actions that might effectively narrow the gap between what-is and what-ought-to-be. Understanding the complexity within such a system demands the recognition of its evolving ecology. Within this evolving industry there is no legitimate means for resetting practices and outcomes back to some undefined acceptable level. Rather than attempting to reverse the irreversible, it would be wise to instead work within the system to improve outcomes through sound scientific principles. The intention of the following work is to characterize and elucidate such principles in an effort to facilitate best intentions becoming better outcomes

A comparison of a novel time-based summary measure of dairy cow health against cumulative disease frequency

Abstract Background There is an increasing push for dairy production to be scientifically grounded and ethically responsible in the oversight of animal health and well-being. Addressing underlying challenges affecting the quality and length of productive life necessitates novel assessment and accountability metrics. Human medical epidemiologists developed the Disability-Adjusted Life Year metric as a summary measure of health addressing the complementary nature of disease and death. The goal of this project was to develop and implement a dairy Disease-Adjusted Lactation (DALact) summary measure of health, as a comparison against cumulative disease frequency. Methods A total of 5694 cows were enrolled at freshening from January 1st, 2014 through May 26th, 2015 on 3 similarly managed U.S. Midwestern Plains’ region dairies. Eleven health categories of interest were tracked from enrollment until culling, death, or the study’s completion date. The DALact accounted for the days of life lost due to illness, forced removal, and death relative to the average lactation length across the participating farms. Results The DALact consistently identified mastitis as the primary disease of concern on all 3 dairies (19,007–23,955 days lost). Secondary issues included musculoskeletal injuries (19,559 days), pneumonia (11,034 days), or lameness (8858 days). By comparison, cumulative frequency measures pointed to mastitis (31–50%) and lameness (25–54%) as the 2 most frequent diseases. Notably, the DALact provided a robust accounting of health events such as musculoskeletal injuries (5010–19,559 days) and calving trauma (2952–5868 days) otherwise overlooked by frequency measures (0–3%). Conclusions The DALact provides a time-based method for assessing the overall burden of disease on dairies. It is important to emphasize that a summary measure of dairy health goes beyond simply linking morbidity to culling and mortality in a standardized fashion. A summary measure speaks to the burden of disease on both the well-being and productivity of individuals and populations. When framed as lost days, years, or lactations the various health issues on a farm are more comprehensible than they may be by frequency measures alone. Such an alternative accounting of disease highlights the lost opportunity costs of production as well as the burden of disease on life as a whole

Differential gene expression in peripheral leukocytes of pre-weaned Holstein heifer calves with respiratory disease.

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is a leading cause of calf morbidity and mortality, and prevalence remains high despite current management practices. Differential gene expression (DGE) provides detailed insight into individual immune responses and can illuminate enriched pathways and biomarkers that contribute to disease susceptibility and outcomes. The aims of this study were to investigate differences in peripheral leukocyte gene expression in Holstein preweaned heifer calves 1) with and without BRD, and 2) across weeks of age. Calves were enrolled for this short-term longitudinal study on two commercial dairies in Washington State. Calves were assessed every two weeks throughout the pre-weaning period using clinical respiratory scoring (CRS) and thoracic ultrasonography (TUS), and blood samples were collected. Calves were selected that were either healthy (n = 10) or had BRD diagnosed by CRS (n = 7), TUS (n = 6), or both (n = 6) in weeks 5 or 7 of life). Three consecutive time point samples were analyzed for each BRD calf consisting of PRE, ONSET, and POST samples. Nineteen genes of interest were selected based on previous gene expression studies in cattle: ALOX15, BPI, CATHL6, CXCL8, DHX58, GZMB, HPGD, IFNG, IL17D, IL1R2, ISG15, LCN2, LIF, MX1, OAS2, PGLYRP1, S100A8, SELP, and TNF. Comparisons were made between age and disease time point matched BRD and healthy calves as well as between calf weeks of age. No DGE was observed between diseased and healthy calves; however, DGE was observed between calf weeks of age regardless of disease state. Developmental differences in leukocyte gene expression, phenotype, and functionality make pre-weaned calves immunologically distinct from mature cattle, and early life shifts in calf leukocyte populations likely contribute to the age-related gene expression differences we observed. Age overshadows disease impacts to influence gene expression in young calves, and immune development progresses upon a common trajectory regardless of disease during the preweaning period

Tangible evidence of historic Australian indigenous savanna management

Knowledge of historic indigenous management practices in north Australian tropical savannas can benefit contemporary management by providing a long-term ecological context. This study provides understanding of how indigenous peoples managed their resources during the period of colonization by Europeans. Traditional management practices and resource use were observed by the European explorers and missionaries, anthropologists and ethnographers who followed. The historic record shows that the savannas were managed intensively by indigenous peoples, even during the colonization era. Across the region they used fire throughout the dry seasons, which is recognized by ecologists today. Importantly, and not previously reported in the ecological literature, they constructed water wells that provided them with extended use of country into the dry seasons, built and managed fisheries to enhance and extend their food supplies, and created extensive walking paths. These findings are significant because previous ecological research has assumed implicitly that indigenous people in the region were dependent on natural waters and therefore subject to seasonal availability of water to enable them to penetrate and live in dry country, and has given scant acknowledgement of manipulation of resources. The anthropological studies were compromised by the devastating social disruptions caused by the colonizers (mostly cattle ranchers and miners) and subsequent missionaries and government administrators. Despite these disruptions, the evidence demonstrates continuity of knowledge and management practices in much of the region. This history provides contemporary ecologists and managers with evidence of consistent patterns of resource management from earlier times. The evidence also shows that indigenous people were less at the mercy of the environment than has been assumed previously. The combined evidence suggests that contemporary management should consider that traditional management practices over many thousands of years were active and ubiquitous, and continued into the present era and probably shaped the biota of the region