Animal Movement For Disease Control In Grazing Ruminants Under Climate Change

通过避开受污染的地区，动物流动是抵御传染病的主要防御措施，但在养殖环境中被随意应用。在田野内限制放牧反刍动物，使它们之间的活动适合于草的利用，往往为寄生虫的传播提供了理想的条件，导致过度使用化学驱虫剂，但由于抗药性，这些驱虫剂现在正在失效。该项目将在自由生活和广泛养殖的有蹄类动物迁徙模式的启发下，重新想象反刍动物在农场环境中的活动，以确定既减少未来农场的疾病传播又允许有效利用资源的策略。该项目首先将重点放在现有的计算机模型上，并通过选定系统的现场采样来支持，然后增加对与细菌病原体的混合感染的预测和测量。这将解决微寄生虫传播风险增加的可能性，如果改变有限土地上的高流动性放牧系统需要增加牛群密度。该项目将在一系列范围内解决这一问题，以获得战略洞察力，并与农民共同制定实用的疾病控制战略。将提供数学建模和计算生物学、实验室诊断寄生虫学、微生物学和利益相关者参与方面的培训。

"Animal movement is a major defence against infectious diseases, by avoiding contaminated areas, but has been applied haphazardly within farmed environments. Constraining grazing ruminants within fields with movements between them geared towards grass utilization often provides ideal conditions for parasite transmission, leading to excessive use of chemical anthelmintics that are now failing due to drug resistance. This project will re-imagine ruminant movements within farm environments, inspired by the migration patterns of free-living and extensively farmed ungulates, in order to identify strategies that both decrease disease transmission on future farms and allow for efficient resource use.The project will focus initially on gastrointestinal nematodes using existing computer models backed up by field sampling of selected systems, before adding in prediction and measurement of coinfections with bacterial pathogens. This will address the potential for increased microparasite transmission risk should a change towards highly mobile grazing systems on limited land area entail increased herd density. The project will address this issue at a range of scales to achieve strategic insights as well as co-production of practical disease control strategies with farmers. Training will be provided in mathematical modelling and computational biology, laboratory diagnostic parasitology, microbiology and stakeholder engagement."