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

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.