Wildlife disease ecology and gamebird management: a one health approach to Lyme disease

野生动物是新出现的人类疾病的重要来源。因此，整合动物、人类和环境健康的“一个健康”方法是理解新出现的人畜共患病生态学以及成功控制和管理疾病的关键。莱姆病是北方最常见的蜱传疾病。近年来，人类莱姆病病例数量迅速增加，导致公共卫生问题。在英国，野鸡被大量放生用于休闲狩猎。这些鸟类可以窝藏大量的蜱虫，并且是莱姆病的病原体--疏螺旋体的特别有能力的储存宿主。越来越多的研究正在调查释放的猎鸟对栖息地和本地野生动物的生态影响。然而，令人惊讶的是，到目前为止，结果的人畜共患病的疾病动力学和人类感染的风险被忽略了，这个项目的目的是测试如何释放的猎鸟影响莱姆病的风险在英国和管理措施如何影响病媒丰度和传播动力学。这个多学科项目提供了机会，结合联合收割机生态实地工作（如野鸡和其他野生动物宿主的采样，蜱虫种群监测），分子技术（如使用qPCR检测疏螺旋体感染）和空间建模，以解决疾病生态学和社区生态学的基本问题，为野生动物管理和人类健康提供重要的应用机会。

Wildlife is an important source of emerging human diseases. A One Health approach that integrates animal, human and environmental health is thus key for understanding the ecology of emerging zoonotic diseases as well as successful disease control and management. Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne disease in the northern hemisphere. The number of human Lyme cases has increased rapidly in recent years, leading to public health concern. Pheasants are released in large numbers for recreational hunting in the UK. These birds can harbour large numbers of ticks and are particularly competent reservoir hosts for Borrelia, the causative agent of Lyme disease. A growing body of research is investigating the ecological effects of released gamebirds on habitats and native wildlife. Surprisingly, however, the consequences of gamebird releases for zoonotic disease dynamics and human infection risk have so far been neglected.The aim of this project is to test how gamebird releases affect Lyme disease risk across the UK and how management practices can influence vector abundance and transmission dynamics. This multidisciplinary project provides opportunities to combine ecological fieldwork (e.g. sampling of pheasants and other wildlife hosts, monitoring of tick populations), molecular techniques (e.g. detection of Borrelia infection using qPCR) and spatial modelling to addresses fundamental questions in disease ecology and community ecology, with important applied opportunities for wildlife management and human health.