Non-Invasive Wildlife Disease Surveillance in Amphibians and Reptiles
A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Herpetology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 119
Special Issue Editor
Interests: zoology; herpetology; taxonomy; snake venom; emerging infectious diseases
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are increasingly recognised as important stressors for wild amphibians and reptiles. However, they are not consistently identified among the drivers of population declines, partly because surveillance is uneven, baseline infection data are scarce, and many regions and taxa remain under-sampled. This knowledge gap can mask pathogen impacts, delay the detection of novel agents, and hinder timely mitigation, especially where disease dynamics interact with habitat alteration, climate change, and human-mediated translocations.
This Special Issue will focus on non-invasive and minimally invasive diagnostics and environmental surveillance for free-ranging herpetofauna, integrating field-ready sampling with robust molecular and analytical workflows. We welcome studies on chytrid fungi, ranaviruses, amphibian and chelonian herpesviruses, and emerging reptile fungi such as Ophidiomyces, Nannizziopsis, and Paranannizziopsis, as well as other agents documented in wild populations. Contributions on parasites and vectors are encouraged when framed within wildlife health surveillance and emergence inference, for example, faecal metabarcoding for endoparasites or screening ticks and other ectoparasites for vector-borne microorganisms and co-infection patterns.
Suitable matrices include environmental DNA from water, sediments or substrates, skin and mucosal swabs, faeces, and snakeskin sheds, supported by validated sampling, storage, and reporting standards. Priority topics include assay development and validation, genomic epidemiology and phylogeography, spatiotemporal risk modelling under climate and land-use change, and management applications such as biosecurity, translocation screening, early warning systems, and evidence-based mitigation.
We look forward to your submissions.
Dr. Matteo Riccardo Di Nicola
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- eDNA
- EIDs
- herpetology
- molecular diagnostics
- pathogens
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