Environmental Stress and Zoonotic Disease Emergence in Rangeland Herbivores Under Climate Warming

This project will investigate the relationship between environmental and host stress and the invasion of pathogens implicated in wildlife mortality events in diverse rangeland systems. Hence, to advance understanding of the drivers of disease emergence under global climate change.

A series of unusual mass mortality events (MME) caused by ostensibly commensal bacteria have recently been observed in association with climate anomalies in wildlife species including saiga antelopes, elephants and muskoxen.

Investigation into MME is usually reactive and a normal baseline for comparison is lacking, so new technologies that allow mining of informative past environmental signatures could prove valuable.

Proposed work streams are: 1) Climate anomaly analysis, 2) Field sampling for historical signals of disease hazard, 3) Mesocosm experiments and 4) Disease modelling.