Parasite transmission at the wildlife-livestock interface and its implications for management - a pilot study of an African savanna ecosystem

随着非洲人口继续成倍增长，受粗放耕作影响的大陆陆地面积比例迅速增加。因此，了解农业生产系统和荒野地区之间界面的生态动态变得越来越重要。这方面的一个主要问题是野生食草动物和家养食草动物之间的疾病传播。在国际机会基金的资助下，我们将建立一个国际专家团队，旨在通过涉及最终用户的多学科方法应对这些挑战。这项建议的重点是普遍存在的胃肠道蠕虫感染，这与畜牧业生产的重大损失和对自然生态过程的干扰在保护价值的地区的关注。具体来说，我们希望抓住机会，扩大英国科学家和肯尼亚野生动物管理局（KWS）兽医科学专业知识之间的合作，这是在目前NERC资助的研究活动中出现的。为此，我们会推行一项合作试验计划，为长远的研究伙伴关系铺路。该项目将从我们建立的稀树草原研究系统中收集有关牲畜和共存的野生有蹄类动物感染率的数据，使我们能够测试我们的新理论框架，以了解单个宿主物种在选定模式寄生虫物种持续存在中的作用。更广泛的目标是获得概念证明，在此基础上我们可以申请大规模资金。通过主办范围界定讲习班，确保最终用户参与项目设计。研究合作的长期目标是在科学的基础上为自然稀树草原生态系统中的牲畜适应性管理提供建议，从而同时改善人类福祉和支持生物多样性保护。此外，该项目增加了价值，我们目前的NERC资助的研究混合物种群体形成的草原食草动物的生态驱动因素，使我们能够估计成本从寄生虫传播在我们的多层社会网络分析。

As Africa's human population continues to grow exponentially, the proportion of the continent's land surface impacted by extensive farming practices is rapidly increasing. Therefore, understanding the ecological dynamics at the interface between agricultural production systems and wilderness areas is becoming ever more important. A main concern in this regard is disease transmission between wild and domestic herbivores. With funding from the International Opportunities Fund, we will establish an international team of experts aiming to tackle these challenges using a multi-disciplinary approach involving the end users. This proposal focuses on the ubiquitous gastro-intestinal helminth infections which are associated with both significant losses to livestock production and concerns about interference with natural ecological processes in areas of conservation value. Specifically, we wish to seize an opportunity to extend a collaboration between UK scientists and expertise in veterinary science at Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) which has emerged during current NERC-funded research activities. For this purpose, we will implement a collaborative pilot project which would pave the way for a long-term research partnership. The project will collect data on infection rates in livestock and coexisting wild ungulates from our established savanna study system, allowing us to test our novel theoretical framework for understanding the roles of individual host species in the persistence of selected model parasite species. The wider aim is to obtain proof of concept on the basis of which we can apply for large scale funding. End-user involvement in project design is ensured by hosting scoping workshops. The long-term goal of the research collaboration is to provide recommendations for adaptive management of livestock in natural savanna ecosystems on a scientific basis, thereby simultaneously improving human welfare and supporting biodiversity conservation. The project moreover adds value to our current NERC-funded research on the ecological drivers of mixed-species group formation among savanna herbivores by allowing us to estimate costs from parasite transmission in our multi-layered social network analysis.