US-Israel Collab: Pathogens and disease transmission in migratory birds along the Palearctic-African flyway

这项研究的主要目的是了解候鸟在世界各地传播各种致病因子方面所起的作用。野生动物被认为是传播不同类型病毒和细菌病原体的媒介，或者是能够储存不同类型病毒和细菌的环境宿主。在这个项目中，研究人员将捕获、标记、收集属于10个不同物种的鸟类的血液和寄生虫样本，这些鸟类在迁徙期间中途停留在以色列觅食和休息。这些鸟在欧洲和亚洲的繁殖地点和非洲的越冬地点之间迁徙。个别禽鸟将接受禽流感病毒和新城疫病毒的暴露测试，沙门氏菌细菌、虱子和扁虱的存在，以及它们的一般健康状况将得到评估。许多动物将安装GPS标签，记录个体在几个月到几年的时间里迁徙、繁殖和越冬时的运动和位置。此外，这项研究将为描述和预测候鸟传播疾病提供新的方法和工具。这些工具将对人类和牲畜的健康以及野生动物的保护和管理都很有用。这项研究的科学目的是促进人们对迁徙如何影响迁徙寄主种群内宿主和病原体的进化生态的了解，并在迁徙种群短暂使用的区域内居住的多物种群落中了解这一点。这将通过比较以色列境内居民和迁徙亚群的血清学、免疫学和生理状态，以及在从全球定位系统和数据记录标签获得的移动信息所揭示的地点，在繁殖地和越冬地随机抽样的个人来实现。这些个人健康数据、高分辨率运动数据以及病原体基因组数据将被分析，以评估以色列内外疾病的时间、强度和传播之间的关系。将使用Nova建模平台构建基于代理的计算模型，并用于评估相关变量之间的关系。此外，这些模型将用于预测疾病系统对土地利用做法和全球气候变化的反应。

The primary aim of the study is to understand the role that migratory birds play in spreading various disease causing agents around the world. Wildlife has been implicated as a vector, capable of transmitting, or as an environmental reservoir, capable of storing, different types of viral and bacterial pathogens. In this project, the researchers will capture, tag, collect blood and parasite samples from birds belonging to ten different species that stop over in Israel to feed and rest during migration. These birds migrate between breeding sites in Europe and Asia and overwintering sites in Africa. Individual birds will be tested for exposure to avian influenza virus and Newcastle Disease virus, the presence of salmonella bacteria, lice and ticks, and their general state-of-health will be assessed. Many of the animals will be fitted with GPS tags that record the movement and locations of individuals as they migrate, breed, and overwinter over a period of many months to several years. In addition, this study will provide new methods and tools for describing and predicting disease transmission by migrating birds. These tools will be useful both for human and livestock health, as well as for the conservation and management of wildlife. They will be made available to the ecological disease research community and for educational purposes at high school and colleges.The scientific aim of the study is to advance knowledge of how migration impacts the evolutionary ecology of hosts and pathogens within migratory host populations and also to understand this within a community of multiple species residing in an area ephemerally used by migratory populations. This will be achieved by comparing the serological, immunological and physiological state of resident and migratory subpopulations within Israel with individuals opportunistically sampled in breeding and overwinter grounds, at sites revealed by movement information obtained from GPS and data-logging tags. These individual-health data, high resolution movement data as well as pathogen genomic data, will be analyzed to assess relationships in timing, intensity and spread of diseases within and beyond Israel. Agent-based computational models will be constructed using the Nova modeling platform and used to assess relationships among correlated variables. In addition, these models will be use to predict responses of disease systems to both land-use practices and global climate change.