Successive use of shared space by badgers and cattle: implications for Mycobacterium bovis transmission
File(s)successive space use 18Dec20 ACCEPTED.docx (2.06 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Managing infectious disease demands understanding pathogen transmission. In Britain, transmission of Mycobacterium bovis from badgers (Meles meles) to cattle hinders the control of bovine tuberculosis (TB), but the mechanism of such transmission is uncertain. As badgers and cattle seldom interact directly, transmission might occur in their shared environment through contact with contamination such as faeces, urine, and saliva. We used concurrent GPS-collar tracking of badgers and cattle at four sites in Cornwall, southwest Britain, to test whether each species used locations previously occupied by the other species, within the survival time of M. bovis bacteria. Although analyses of the same dataset showed that badgers avoided cattle, we found no evidence that this avoidance persisted over time: neither GPS-collared badgers or cattle avoided space which had been occupied by the other species in the preceding 36h. Defining a contact event as an animal being located <5m from space occupied by the other species within the previous 36h, we estimated that a herd of 176 cattle (mean herd size in our study areas) would contact badgers at least 6.0 times during an average 24h period. Similarly, we estimated that a social group of 3.5 badgers (mean group size in our study areas) would contact cattle at least 0.76 times during an average night. Such frequent successive use of the same shared space, within the survival time of M. bovis bacteria, could potentially facilitate M. bovis transmission via the environment.
Date Issued
2021-06-01
Date Acceptance
2020-12-17
Citation
Journal of Zoology, 2021, 314 (2), pp.132-142
ISSN
0952-8369
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
132
End Page
142
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Zoology
Volume
314
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2021 The Zoological Society of London. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article, which has been published in final form at https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jzo.12863. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.
Sponsor
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Grant Number
MR/R015600/1
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Zoology
badger
cattle
bovine tuberculosis
Mycobacterium bovis
wildlife health
disease ecology
Meles meles
05 Environmental Sciences
06 Biological Sciences
Zoology
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-03-24