Host-parasite dynamics and strategies for managing infectious diseases of wildlife depend on the functional relationship between disease transmission rates and host density. However, the disease transmission function is rarely known for free-living wildlife, leading to uncertainty regarding the impacts of diseases on host populations and effective control actions. We evaluated the influence of ...

Endemic and emerging diseases are rarely uniform in their spatial distribution or prevalence among cohorts of wildlife. Spatial models that quantify risk-driven differences in resource selection and hunter mortality of animals at fine spatial scales can assist disease management by identifying high-risk areas and individuals. We used resource selection functions (RSFs) and selection ratios (SRs...

Deposition of prions into the environment by infected animals may contribute to transmission and spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD) among free-ranging cervids, and identification of such environmental sources may provide an avenue for managing CWD. We evaluated the role that wallow use by elk (Cervus elaphus) may play in CWD transmission by monitoring wallows with animal-activated cameras ...

One of the pervasive challenges in landscape genetics is detecting gene flow patterns within continuous populations of highly mobile wildlife. Understanding population genetic structure within a continuous population can give insights into social structure, movement across the landscape and contact between populations, which influence ecological interactions, reproductive dynamics or pathogen t...

Scrapie, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and chronic wasting disease (CWD) are prion diseases in ruminants with considerable impact on animal health and welfare. They can also pose a risk to human health and control is therefore an important issue. Prion protein (PrP) genetics may be used to control and eventually eradicate animal prion diseases. The PrP gene in sheep and other represen...

Cachexia is a wasting syndrome associated with elevated basal energy expenditure and loss of adipose and muscle tissues. It accompanies many chronic diseases including renal failure and cancer and is an important risk factor for mortality. Our recent work demonstrated that tumor-derived PTHrP drives adipose tissue browning and cachexia. Here, we show that PTH is involved in stimulating a thermo...

Background: It is necessary to get information on nutrition situation in children and epidemiology of the malnutrition to use for planning and health policy making, therefore this study aimed to identify the role of human development on nutrition situation in children under-five years of old worldwide.Methods: This ecological study was performed on the relation of the nutrition situation of chi...

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a neurodegenerative disease caused by a prion that affects cervids including deer, elk and moose. At one time, CWD was an obscure illness that seemed to occur only in a small geographic area in northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming. However, this disease is now found in wild and/or farmed cervids in many other states in the U.S., where it appears to be ...

OBJECTIVES To determine the nutritional status and validity of mid upper arm circumference (MAC) in diagnosing malnutrition among preschool children. DESIGN Cross-sectional household survey. SETTING 47 villages in District Ambala, Haryana. SUBJECTS 3747 children aged less than six years. METHODOLOGY Trained field workers recorded age, weight, length/ height and MAC of children. Prevalen...