Animal Movement For Disease Control In Grazing Ruminants Under Climate Change

“通过避开污染区域，动物运动是抵御传染病的主要手段，但在养殖环境中却被随意应用。将放牧反刍动物限制在牧场内，使它们之间的活动朝着利用草地的方向发展，往往为寄生虫传播提供了理想的条件，导致过度使用化学驱虫剂，而这些驱虫剂现在由于耐药性而失败。受自由生活和广泛养殖的有蹄类动物迁徙模式的启发，该项目将重新设想农场环境中反刍动物的运动，以确定既能减少未来农场疾病传播又能有效利用资源的策略。该项目最初将把重点放在胃肠道线虫上，使用现有的计算机模型，并对选定的系统进行实地抽样，然后再增加对细菌病原体共感染的预测和测量。如果在有限的土地面积上转向高度流动的放牧系统导致畜群密度增加，这将解决微寄生虫传播风险增加的潜在问题。该项目将在不同规模上解决这一问题，以获得战略见解，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."