Spatio-Temporal network analysis and modeling at the wildlife-livestock interface to evaluate the risk of Brucellosis transmission.
-
1
Center for Animal Disease Modeling and Surveillance, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, United States
-
2
Noble Research Institute, LLC, United States
The quantification and study of the intra/inter species interactions is key to better understanding disease transmission at the wildlife-livestock interface (1,2). However, a considerable lack of information regarding wildlife-livestock contact patterns and their association with disease transmission in many geographic regions continue to exist. A spatio-temporal disease network analysis was carried out with the objective of characterizing wildlife and livestock contact patterns, and their contribution(s) to potential Brucellosis disease transmission in the Oklahoma-Texas border. First, we gathered animal contact data. A total of 52 collars were evaluated from 2016 to 2019, with different time-intervals capturing movement patterns of a total of 59 feral pigs, 35 cattle and 28 deer. GPS Plus X collars were configured in such a way, that latitude and longitude coordinates were recorded either every 30 or 60 minutes. We assumed that a contact can occur at five meter radius from each animal (max of 10 meter distance between paired animal coordinates), given the range error of the collar. In conjunction with this spatial definition of contact, a temporal window for contact was defined using a 10 minute window. Thus, the spatiotemporal definition of contact between animals was defined by any two points separated 10 meters or less within 10 minutes of each other. Second, we also obtained information about the sanitary status of most of those animals for multiple diseases, although here we will only focus on Brucellosis due to the important animal and public health implications of this disease. Once data was collected and verified, we generated a spatial-explicit dynamic network and used network analysis and a network-based model to evaluate the evolution of contacts within and between species as well as their potential role in Brucellosis transmission. Results show that contact patterns between feral pigs and deer and livestock are clustered in specific locations and time periods, being more frequently in summer. Interesting enough, groups of animals with higher inter-species contact were found to present more Brucellosis seroprevalence. Moreover, the network based model emphasized the high risk of Brucellosis transmission to cattle given the rate of inter-species contact patterns and the seroprevalence found in feral pigs. Methods and results of this study would be useful to identify areas were target interventions could be conducted to minimize high risk contacts between livestock and wild species to better prevent and control disease transmission at the interface.
Acknowledgements
We thank the team at the Noble Research Institute for the provision of data as well as the advice of Roxana Triguero to handle the collar data.
References
1. Triguero-Ocaña, R., Barasona, J. A., Carro, F., Soriguer, R. C., Vicente, J., & Acevedo, P. (2019). Spatio-temporal trends in the frequency of interspecific interactions between domestic and wild ungulates from Mediterranean Spain. PloS one, 14(1), e0211216.
2. Barasona, J. A., Latham, M. C., Acevedo, P., Armenteros, J. A., Latham, A. D. M., Gortázar, C., ... & Vicente, J. (2014a). Spatiotemporal interactions between wild boar and cattle: implications for cross-species disease transmission. Veterinary research, 45(1), 122.
Keywords:
Brucellosis,
Sus scrofa,
White-tailed deer,
Spatial Epidemiology,
GPS collar,
Oklahoma (USA),
Precision sensors,
Spatio-temporal networks,
Animal movement analysis
Conference:
GeoVet 2019. Novel spatio-temporal approaches in the era of Big Data, Davis, United States, 8 Oct - 10 Oct, 2019.
Presentation Type:
Student oral presentation
Topic:
Spatial-explicit or spatio-temporal network analysis
Citation:
Rascon-Garcia
KN,
Webb
S and
Martínez-López
B
(2019). Spatio-Temporal network analysis and modeling at the wildlife-livestock interface to evaluate the risk of Brucellosis transmission..
Front. Vet. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
GeoVet 2019. Novel spatio-temporal approaches in the era of Big Data.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fvets.2019.05.00035
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
21 Jun 2019;
Published Online:
27 Sep 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Mx. Karla N Rascon-Garcia, Center for Animal Disease Modeling and Surveillance, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, Davis, California, CA 95616-5270, United States, rascongarcia@ucdavis.edu
Prof. Beatriz Martínez-López, Center for Animal Disease Modeling and Surveillance, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, Davis, California, CA 95616-5270, United States, beamartinezlopez@ucdavis.edu