DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Disease Invasion Dynamics: Brucella abortus and Mycobacterium bovis in African Buffalo

共同感染的病原体之间的相互作用在野生动物种群中很常见，每种病原体都有可能相互影响-S传播。在非洲水牛中，疾病的相互作用可能会产生重要的社会和经济后果，因为水牛是布鲁氏菌病和牛结核病的主要宿主。布鲁氏菌病和结核病都是细菌感染，在野生动物保护区周围地区，如南非克鲁格国家公园的边界，对牛的溢出感染会导致显著的发病率。牛结核病在20世纪80年代才被引入克鲁格国家公园的水牛种群，因此它对水牛种群和布鲁氏菌病传播的影响尚不清楚。如果牛结核病导致混合感染动物的死亡率增加，则可能会减少布鲁氏菌病的传播；如果它引起的免疫抑制增强了布鲁氏菌病的传播，则可能会增加布鲁氏菌病的传播。该项目旨在了解牛结核病引起的免疫抑制和死亡率增加如何影响布鲁氏菌病的传播。该项目将结合免疫学工具来研究单个水牛中的病原体相互作用，并建立数学模型来从单个宿主扩大规模，以预测水牛疾病传播的种群规模后果。该项目将通过在非洲和俄勒冈州立大学兽医学院的合作和推广，加强兽医和生态学家之间的联系。理解野生动物疾病相互作用的机制和后果需要这些领域之间的整合，因为它们提供了不同的视角和技术。该项目的结果将对野生动物疾病的总体管理和预测野生动物水库中新病原体的后果具有实际意义。

Interactions between co-infecting pathogens are common in wildlife populations and each pathogen has the potential to affect one another?s transmission. In African buffalo, disease interactions may have important social and economic consequences because buffalo are the main reservoirs of brucellosis and bovine tuberculosis. Both brucellosis and tuberculosis are bacterial infections that cause significant morbidity during spill-over infections to cattle in areas surrounding wildlife preserves, such as on the borders of Kruger National Park, South Africa. Bovine tuberculosis was only recently introduced into Kruger National Park's buffalo population in the 1980s, so its effects on both the buffalo population as well as on brucellosis transmission are unknown. Bovine tuberculosis may reduce the spread of brucellosis if it causes increased mortality in co-infected animals or may increase the spread of brucellosis if the immune suppression it causes enhances the transmission of brucellosis. This project aims to understand how the immune-suppression and increased mortality caused by Bovine tuberculosis affect brucellosis transmission. The project will combine immunological tools to investigate pathogen interactions in individual buffalo, with mathematical models to scale up from individual hosts to predict population scale consequences for disease transmission in buffalo. This project will foster stronger linkage between veterinarians and ecologists through collaborations, and outreach in Africa and at the veterinary school at Oregon State University. Understanding the mechanisms and consequences of wildlife disease interactions requires integration between these fields as they offer different perspectives and techniques. Results from this project will have practical implications for management of wildlife diseases in general and for predicting the consequences of new pathogens in their wildlife reservoirs.