Infectious Disease Ecology

Infectious Disease Ecology PDF

Author: Richard S. Ostfeld

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2008-02-24

Total Pages: 520

ISBN-13: 069112485X

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News headlines are forever reporting diseases that take huge tolls on humans, wildlife, domestic animals, and both cultivated and native plants worldwide. These diseases can also completely transform the ecosystems that feed us and provide us with other critical benefits, from flood control to water purification. And yet diseases sometimes serve to maintain the structure and function of the ecosystems on which humans depend. Gathering thirteen essays by forty leading experts who convened at the Cary Conference at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in 2005, this book develops an integrated framework for understanding where these diseases come from, what ecological factors influence their impacts, and how they in turn influence ecosystem dynamics. It marks the first comprehensive and in-depth exploration of the rich and complex linkages between ecology and disease, and provides conceptual underpinnings to understand and ameliorate epidemics. It also sheds light on the roles that diseases play in ecosystems, bringing vital new insights to landscape management issues in particular. While the ecological context is a key piece of the puzzle, effective control and understanding of diseases requires the interaction of professionals in medicine, epidemiology, veterinary medicine, forestry, agriculture, and ecology. The essential resource on the subject, Infectious Disease Ecology seeks to bridge these fields with an ecological approach that focuses on systems thinking and complex interactions.

Disease Ecology

Disease Ecology PDF

Author: Sharon K. Collinge

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2006-01-26

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 019152428X

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Many infectious diseases of recent concern, including malaria, cholera, plague, and Lyme disease, have emerged from complex ecological communities, involving multiple hosts and their associated parasites. Several of these diseases appear to be influenced by human impacts on the environment, such as intensive agriculture, clear-cut forestry, and habitat loss and fragmentation; such environmental impacts may affect many species that occur at trophic levels below or above the host community. These observations suggest that the prevalence of both human and wildlife diseases may be altered in unanticipated ways by changes in the structure and composition of ecological communities. Predicting the epidemiological ramifications of such alteration in community composition will require strengthening the current union between community ecology and epidemiology. Disease Ecology highlights exciting advances in theoretical and empirical research towards understanding the importance of community structure in the emergence of infectious diseases. To date, research on host-parasite systems has tended to explore a limited set of community interactions, such as a community of host species infected by a single parasite species, or a community of parasites infecting a single host. Less effort has been devoted to addressing additional complications, such as multiple-host-multiple-parasite systems, sequential hosts acting on different trophic levels, alternate hosts with spatially varying interactions, effects arising from trophic levels other than those of hosts and parasites, or stochastic effects resulting from small population size in at least one alternate host species. The chapters in this book illustrate aspects of community ecology that influence pathogen transmission rates and disease dynamics in a wide variety of study systems. The innovative studies presented in Disease Ecology communicate a clear message: studies of epidemiology can be approached from the perspective of community ecology, and students of community ecology can contribute significantly to epidemiology.

Global Health Security

Global Health Security PDF

Author: Anthony J. Masys

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-01-01

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 3030234916

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With our highly connected and interdependent world, the growing threat of infectious diseases and public health crisis has shed light on the requirement for global efforts to manage and combat highly pathogenic infectious diseases and other public health crisis on an unprecedented level. Such disease threats transcend borders. Reducing global threats posed by infectious disease outbreaks – whether naturally caused or resulting from a deliberate or accidental release – requires efforts that cross the disaster management pillars: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. This book addresses the issues of global health security along 4 themes: Emerging Threats; Mitigation, Preparedness, Response and Recovery; Exploring the Technology Landscape for Solutions; Leadership and Partnership. The authors of this volume highlight many of the challenges that confront our global security environment today. These range from politically induced disasters, to food insecurity, to zoonosis and terrorism. More optimistically, the authors also present some advances in technology that can help us combat these threats. Understanding the challenges that confront us and the tools we have to overcome them will allow us to face our future with confidence.

Climate Change and Agriculture Worldwide

Climate Change and Agriculture Worldwide PDF

Author: Emmanuel Torquebiau

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-10-26

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 9401774625

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In recent years, especially with the approach of the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris in late 2015, the number of publications, conferences and meetings on climate change has been growing exponentially. Yet uncertainties remain concerning rural tropical areas where models are forecasting the onset of multiple disorders and trends are unclear. Meanwhile, the impact of climate change on the poorest communities is regularly documented, often prompting alarmist reactions. How can food security be achieved while adapting to and mitigating climate change? What are the main threats to agriculture in developing countries? How do farmers in these countries cope with the threats? What does agricultural research propose? What options have yet to be investigated? A broad scope of scientific research is underway to address these challenges. Diverse solutions are available, including new agricultural practices, water management, agricultural waste recycling, diagnosis of emerging diseases, payment for ecosystem services, etc. Gaining insight into the financial and political mechanisms that underlie international climate negotiations is also essential to design practical ways to deal with climate issues and meet sustainable development requirements in collaboration with farmers. This book pools the wealth of experience of dozens of researchers and development officers from a range of disciplines. We have focused on making it detailed, accurate and hopefully easy to read for researchers, students and all other informed readers.

Transfrontier Conservation Areas

Transfrontier Conservation Areas PDF

Author: Jens Andersson

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-07-14

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1351376748

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The introduction of transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs) in southern Africa was based on an enchanting promise: simultaneously contributing to global biodiversity conservation initiatives, regional peace and integration, and the sustainable socio-economic development of rural communities. Cross-border collaboration and eco-tourism became seen as the vehicles of this promise, which would enhance regional peace and stability along the way. However, as these highly political projects take shape, conservation and development policymaking progressively shifts from the national to regional and global arenas, and the peoples most affected by TFCA formation tend to disappear from view. This book focuses on the forgotten people displaced by, or living on the edge of, protected wildlife areas. It moves beyond the grand 'enchanting promise' of conservation and development across frontiers, and unfounded notions of TFCAs as integrated social-ecological systems. Peoples' dependency on natural resources – the specific combination of crop cultivation, livestock keeping and natural resource harvesting activities – varies enormously along the conservation frontier, as does their reliance on resources on the other side of the conservation boundary. Hence, the studies in this book move from the dream of eco-tourism-fuelled development supporting nature conservation and people towards the local realities facing marginalized people, living adjacent to protected areas in environments often poorly suited to agriculture.

World Livestock 2013

World Livestock 2013 PDF

Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 2018-08-22

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 9251079277

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The World Livestock 2013: Changing disease landscapes looks at the evidence of changing disease dynamics involving livestock and explores three key areas: the Pressure, including drivers and risk factors that contribute to disease emergence, spread and persistence; the State, describing the disease dynamics that result from the Pressure and their subsequent impact; and the Response, required both to adapt and improve the State and to mitigate the Pressure. The report argues that a comprehensive approach for the promotion of global health is needed to face the complexities of the changing disease landscapes, giving greater emphasis on agro-ecological resilience, protection of biodiversity and efficient use of natural resources to ensure safer food supply chains, particularly in areas worst afflicted by poverty and animal diseases. Speeding up response times by early detection and reaction – including improved policies that address disease drivers – is key. Forging a safer, healthier world requires engagement in the One Health approach, which involves all relevant actors and disciplines spanning animal, human and environmental health sectors.