Special Issue "Wild Animals and Infectious Diseases: From Wildlife Conservation to a Public Health Challenge"

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Ecology and Conservation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2021.

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Serena Montagnaro
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Productions, University of Naples "Federico II", Via Delpino 1 – 80137 – Naples, Italy
Interests: veterinary epidemiology; prevalence study; risk analysis; veterinary virology; virus/host cell interaction; virus infection and cell death; infectious disease

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Several infectious diseases sustained by pathogens that have a broad host spectrum affect people, domestic animals, and wildlife alike. Therefore, numerous infectious diseases that involve wildlife pose a problem for human health, animal, and public health.

The interface between wild and domestic animals is dynamic and bidirectional, and pathogens are freely transmitted within and between wildlife and livestock species. This process is favored by an indirect contact in a common environment, through the use of shared resources such as pastures, vectors, etc.

Moreover, biodiversity loss and habitat fragmentation can play a key role in the spread of zoonotic diseases and in the alteration of the interface between wild and domestic animals. Therefore, it is necessary to face this situation in the context of One Health, which emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration and highlights the indivisible nature of health and disease in humans and animals.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to improve the knowledge of these interfaces and to clarify the role of wildlife in the transmission and maintenance of infectious diseases in an animal and human population. These results will be useful to design, refine, and adapt surveillance strategies to better monitor diseases at the interface between fauna and livestock.

Dr. Serena Montagnaro
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • infectious disease
  • wildlife
  • public health
  • biodiversity
  • one health

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
Indirect Effect of African Swine Fever on the Diet Composition of the Gray Wolf Canis lupus—A Case Study in Belarus
Animals 2021, 11(6), 1758; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11061758 - 12 Jun 2021
Viewed by 1193
Abstract
After the emergence of African swine fever (ASF), the wild boar population numbers fell drastically in Eastern Europe. This situation made it possible to verify the changes in the wolves’ diet that occurred. The material collection was carried out in two regions, Grodno [...] Read more.
After the emergence of African swine fever (ASF), the wild boar population numbers fell drastically in Eastern Europe. This situation made it possible to verify the changes in the wolves’ diet that occurred. The material collection was carried out in two regions, Grodno and Vitebsk, in Belarus. In total, 19 species/groups of prey were observed in the gray wolf diet, but the most important were wild boar, elk, red deer, roe deer and beaver. The decrease in the number of wild boar caused changes in the diet of wolves but only in Vitebsk region, where wolves’ diet before the ASF epidemic outbreak consisted mainly of elk and wild boar. After the decrease of wild boar numbers, wolves still mainly hunted elk, but other types of prey included roe deer, red deer and beaver. We found a negative correlation between wild boar and both deer species (roe deer and red deer) in the wolves’ diet. Moreover, the more the wolves consumed elk, the less they consumed beaver. In our opinion, only intensive hunting of wolves by humans can explain the resulting dietary fluctuations between elk and beaver, as well as the fact that wolves did not turn to other food sources. Full article
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