Autor(es): Ferreira, Eduardo M ; Cunha, Monica ; Duarte, Elsa Leclerc ; Gonçalves, Renata ; Pinto, Tiago ; Mira, António ; Santos, Sara M
Data: 2025
Identificador Persistente: http://hdl.handle.net/10174/38532
Origem: Repositório Científico da Universidade de Évora
Assunto(s): Animal tuberculosis; Mycobacterium bovis
In many Mediterranean ecosystems, animal tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium bovis, is maintained by multi-host communities in which cattle and different wildlife species establish interaction networks contributing to M. bovis transmission and persistence. Most studies have addressed wildlife–cattle disease-relevant interactions, focusing on reservoir hosts, while disregarding the potential contribution of the so-called accidental hosts and/or neglecting wildlife–wildlife interactions. In this work, we aimed to characterise interspecies interactions in an endemic TB risk area and identify the ecological drivers of interaction patterns regardless of the pre-attributed role of host species on TB epidemiology. For that purpose, spatial–temporal indirect interactions between wildlife mammals and cattle, and between different wildlife species, were investigated through camera trapping. Second, five ecological hypotheses potentially driving species pair interactions in the wet and dry seasons were tested covering water and control sites: human presence (H1), landscape composition (H2), topography (H3), weather (H4), and natural food and water resources (H5). Wild boar (Sus scrofa), red deer (Cervus elaphus), and red fox (Vulpes vulpes) were the wildlife species mostly involved in indirect interactions. We found that indirect wildlife–cattle interactions were more frequent than wildlife interactions and, for certain species pairs, interaction rates were higher in the wet season in both wildlife–cattle and wildlife groups. Natural food and water resources (H5) was the most supported hypothesis that influenced the abundance of wildlife–cattle interactions, with positive effects during the dry season and negative effects during the wet season. In contrast, the abundance of indirect interactions between wildlife species was mainly supported by the human disturbance hypothesis (H1), with negative effects exerted on the dry season and variable effects on the wet season. Other tested hypotheses also influenced wildlife–cattle and wildlife–wildlife interactions, depending on the season and host species. These results highlight that indirect interactions, and thus conditions potentially favouring the transmission of M. bovis in shared environments, are determined by different ecological backgrounds.
Eduardo M. Ferreira was also financed by MED (DOI: https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/05183/2020) and CHANGE (DOI:https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0121/2020) funds to PhD stu-dents. This work was also funded by FCT within the scope ofMOVERCULOSIS project (2022.06014.PTDC)—combininganimal behaviour and movement to assess the influence ofwildlife–livestock interactions on the spatiotemporal trans-mission risk of animal tuberculosis (https://doi.org/10.54499/2022.06014.PTDC). We also acknowledge strategicfunding from FCT to cE3c and BioISI Research Units (DOI:https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/00329/2020 and DOI: https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/04046/2020, respectively), to MEDResearch Unit (UIDP/05183/2020 and UIDB/05183/2020),and to the Associate Laboratory CHANGE
