Imperial College London
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Professor Christl Donnelly CBE FMedSci FRS

Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health

Visiting Professor
 
 
 
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Contact

 

c.donnelly Website

 
 
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Location

 

School of Public HealthWhite City Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Woodroffe:2016:10.1111/ele.12654,
author = {Woodroffe, R and Donnelly, CA and Ham, C and Jackson, SY and Moyes, K and Chapman, K and Stratton, NG and Cartwright, SJ},
doi = {10.1111/ele.12654},
journal = {Ecology Letters},
title = {Badgers prefer cattle pasture but avoid cattle: implications for bovine tuberculosis control},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12654},
volume = {19},
year = {2016}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Effective management of infectious disease relies upon understanding mechanisms of pathogen transmission. In particular, while models of disease dynamics usually assume transmission through direct contact, transmission through environmental contamination can cause different dynamics. We used Global Positioning System (GPS) collars and proximity-sensing contact-collars to explore opportunities for transmission of Mycobacterium bovis [causal agent of bovine tuberculosis] between cattle and badgers (Meles meles). Cattle pasture was badgers' most preferred habitat. Nevertheless, although collared cattle spent 2914 collar-nights in the home ranges of contact-collared badgers, and 5380 collar-nights in the home ranges of GPS-collared badgers, we detected no direct contacts between the two species. Simultaneous GPS-tracking revealed that badgers preferred land > 50 m from cattle. Very infrequent direct contact indicates that badger-to-cattle and cattle-to-badger M. bovis transmission may typically occur through contamination of the two species' shared environment. This information should help to inform tuberculosis control by guiding both modelling and farm management.
AU  - Woodroffe,R
AU  - Donnelly,CA
AU  - Ham,C
AU  - Jackson,SY
AU  - Moyes,K
AU  - Chapman,K
AU  - Stratton,NG
AU  - Cartwright,SJ
DO  - 10.1111/ele.12654
PY  - 2016///
SN  - 1461-0248
TI  - Badgers prefer cattle pasture but avoid cattle: implications for bovine tuberculosis control
T2  - Ecology Letters
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.12654
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/45795
VL  - 19
ER  -
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