Cargando…
Seasonality and pathogen transmission in pastoral cattle contact networks
Capturing heterogeneity in contact patterns in animal populations is essential for understanding the spread of infectious diseases. In contrast to other regions of the world in which livestock movement networks are integral to pathogen prevention and control policies, contact networks are understudi...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society Publishing
2017
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5749993/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29308225 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170808 |
_version_ | 1783289676286656512 |
---|---|
author | VanderWaal, Kimberly Gilbertson, Marie Okanga, Sharon Allan, Brian F. Craft, Meggan E. |
author_facet | VanderWaal, Kimberly Gilbertson, Marie Okanga, Sharon Allan, Brian F. Craft, Meggan E. |
author_sort | VanderWaal, Kimberly |
collection | PubMed |
description | Capturing heterogeneity in contact patterns in animal populations is essential for understanding the spread of infectious diseases. In contrast to other regions of the world in which livestock movement networks are integral to pathogen prevention and control policies, contact networks are understudied in pastoral regions of Africa due to the challenge of measuring contact among mobile herds of cattle whose movements are driven by access to resources. Furthermore, the extent to which seasonal changes in the distribution of water and resources impacts the structure of contact networks in cattle is uncertain. Contact networks may be more conducive to pathogen spread in the dry season due to congregation at limited water sources. Alternatively, less abundant forage may result in decreased pathogen transmission due to competitive avoidance among herds, as measured by reduced contact rates. Here, we use GPS technology to concurrently track 49 free-roaming cattle herds within a semi-arid region of Kenya, and use these data to characterize seasonal contact networks and model the spread of a highly infectious pathogen. This work provides the first empirical data on the local contact network structure of mobile herds based on quantifiable contact events. The contact network demonstrated high levels of interconnectivity. An increase in contacts near to water resources in the dry season resulted in networks with both higher contact rates and higher potential for pathogen spread than in the wet season. Simulated disease outbreaks were also larger in the dry season. Results support the hypothesis that limited water resources enhance connectivity and transmission within contact networks, as opposed to reducing connectivity as a result of competitive avoidance. These results cast light on the impact of seasonal heterogeneity in resource availability on predicting pathogen transmission dynamics, which has implications for other free-ranging wild and domestic populations. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5749993 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | The Royal Society Publishing |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-57499932018-01-07 Seasonality and pathogen transmission in pastoral cattle contact networks VanderWaal, Kimberly Gilbertson, Marie Okanga, Sharon Allan, Brian F. Craft, Meggan E. R Soc Open Sci Biology (Whole Organism) Capturing heterogeneity in contact patterns in animal populations is essential for understanding the spread of infectious diseases. In contrast to other regions of the world in which livestock movement networks are integral to pathogen prevention and control policies, contact networks are understudied in pastoral regions of Africa due to the challenge of measuring contact among mobile herds of cattle whose movements are driven by access to resources. Furthermore, the extent to which seasonal changes in the distribution of water and resources impacts the structure of contact networks in cattle is uncertain. Contact networks may be more conducive to pathogen spread in the dry season due to congregation at limited water sources. Alternatively, less abundant forage may result in decreased pathogen transmission due to competitive avoidance among herds, as measured by reduced contact rates. Here, we use GPS technology to concurrently track 49 free-roaming cattle herds within a semi-arid region of Kenya, and use these data to characterize seasonal contact networks and model the spread of a highly infectious pathogen. This work provides the first empirical data on the local contact network structure of mobile herds based on quantifiable contact events. The contact network demonstrated high levels of interconnectivity. An increase in contacts near to water resources in the dry season resulted in networks with both higher contact rates and higher potential for pathogen spread than in the wet season. Simulated disease outbreaks were also larger in the dry season. Results support the hypothesis that limited water resources enhance connectivity and transmission within contact networks, as opposed to reducing connectivity as a result of competitive avoidance. These results cast light on the impact of seasonal heterogeneity in resource availability on predicting pathogen transmission dynamics, which has implications for other free-ranging wild and domestic populations. The Royal Society Publishing 2017-12-06 /pmc/articles/PMC5749993/ /pubmed/29308225 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170808 Text en © 2017 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Biology (Whole Organism) VanderWaal, Kimberly Gilbertson, Marie Okanga, Sharon Allan, Brian F. Craft, Meggan E. Seasonality and pathogen transmission in pastoral cattle contact networks |
title | Seasonality and pathogen transmission in pastoral cattle contact networks |
title_full | Seasonality and pathogen transmission in pastoral cattle contact networks |
title_fullStr | Seasonality and pathogen transmission in pastoral cattle contact networks |
title_full_unstemmed | Seasonality and pathogen transmission in pastoral cattle contact networks |
title_short | Seasonality and pathogen transmission in pastoral cattle contact networks |
title_sort | seasonality and pathogen transmission in pastoral cattle contact networks |
topic | Biology (Whole Organism) |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5749993/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29308225 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170808 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT vanderwaalkimberly seasonalityandpathogentransmissioninpastoralcattlecontactnetworks AT gilbertsonmarie seasonalityandpathogentransmissioninpastoralcattlecontactnetworks AT okangasharon seasonalityandpathogentransmissioninpastoralcattlecontactnetworks AT allanbrianf seasonalityandpathogentransmissioninpastoralcattlecontactnetworks AT craftmeggane seasonalityandpathogentransmissioninpastoralcattlecontactnetworks |