#humaninpacts — Public Fediverse posts

Predicting Disease Spread From Host Movement Data - Chronic Wasting Disease In North America As A Case Study
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https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70310 <-- shared paper
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https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70278253 <-- shared USGS publication
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[animation: An animated map of the distribution of chronic wasting disease in the U.S. and Canada from 2007-2024.]
H/T @USGS
“Does host movement play a role in the spread of chronic wasting disease?🦌
Chronic wasting disease (CWD), a fatal neurodegenerative prion disease affecting deer, elk, and other cervids, has now been detected in 37 U.S. states and 5 Canadian provinces. Understanding how the disease spreads across landscapes is critical to managing it, and one hypothesis is that regions where deer move long distances, as with seasonal migrations, there should be faster disease spread.
A new USGS study tests this hypothesis. Using published GPS deer movement and CWD spread data, scientists built statistical models predicting how fast CWD should spread based on the migration and dispersal patterns of mule deer and white-tailed deer. They then compared these predictions to two decades of observed CWD detection data across North America (2005 to 2022).
The results were only partially consistent with expectations:
💠Western epicenters with highly mobile mule deer did have faster CWD spread rates than regions with only white-tailed deer.
💠In the Canadian Prairie Provinces (Alberta/Saskatchewan), deer movements were shorter than in Colorado or Wyoming, yet CWD spread faster there.
💠Predicted CWD spread based on deer movement resulted in slower rates than the observed CWD rates showing that accounting for migration or juvenile dispersal did not fully explain the observed CWD rate estimates.
This study provides the first estimates of CWD spread rates across the U.S. and Canada. These results help to inform an important management tradeoff: deer movements can contribute to disease spread, but migration may also help support resilient and healthy wildlife populations…”
#ChronicWastingDisease #CWD #host #movement #spatial #mapping #GIS #NorthAmerica #Canada #USA #wildlife #neurodegenerative #prion #disease #deer #GPS #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #seasonal #migration #literaturereview #opendata #USGS #muledeer #whitetaildeer #spread #rate #prairie #openrange #pasture #grassland #montane #riverine #animal #animalmovement #anthropogenic #humaninpacts
@USGS