New Directions in Conservation Medicine Applied Cases of Ecological Health

by Aguirre, A. Alonso; Ostfeld, Richard; Daszak, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780199731473
• ISBN10: 0199731470
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-06-08
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In recent years, species and ecosystems have been threatened by many anthropogenic factors manifested in local and global declines of populations and species. Although we consider conservation medicine an emerging field, the concept is the result of the long evolution of transdisciplinary thinking within the health and ecological sciences and the better understanding of the complexity within these various fields of knowledge. Conservation medicine was born from the cross fertilization of ideas generated by this new transdisciplinary design. It examines the links among changes in climate, habitat quality, and land use; emergence and re-emergence of infectious agents, parasites and environmental contaminants; and maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem functions as they sustain the health of plant and animal communities including humans. During the past ten years, new tools and institutional initiatives for assessing and monitoring ecological health concerns have emerged: landscape epidemiology, disease ecological modeling and web-based analytics. New types of integrated ecological health assessment are being deployed; these efforts incorporate environmental indicator studies with specific biomedical diagnostic tools. Other innovations include the development of non-invasive physiological and behavioral monitoring techniques; the adaptation of modern molecular biological and biomedical techniques; the design of population level disease monitoring strategies; the creation of ecosystem-based health and sentinel species surveillance approaches; and the adaptation of health monitoring systems for appropriate developing country situations. New Directions of Conservation Medicine: Applied Cases of Ecological Health addresses these issues with relevant case studies and detailed applied examples. New Directions of Conservation Medicine challenges the notion that human health is an isolated concern removed from the bounds of ecology and species interactions. Human health, animal health, and ecosystem health are moving closer together and at some point, it will be inconceivable that there was ever a clear division.

Author Biography

A. Alonso Aguirre is Executive Director of the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation based at Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, and Associate Professor at the Department of Environmental Science and Policy in George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Richard S. Ostfeld is Senior Scientist and Animal Ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, New York. Peter Daszak is President of EcoHealth Alliance, New York, New York.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Planet Doctors	p. xi
Preface	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Contributors	p. xvii
Conservation Medicine: Ecological Health in Practice
Conservation Medicine: Ontogeny of an Emerging Discipline	p. 3
Ecohealth: Connecting Ecology Health, and Sustainability	p. 17
One Health, One Medicine	p. 33
Biodiversity and Human Health	p. 45
An Ecosystem Service of Biodiversity: The Protection of Human Health Against Infectious Disease	p. 56
Parasite Conservation, Conservation Medicine and Ecosystem Health	p. 67
Stress and Immunosuppression as Factors in the Decline and Extinction of Wildlife Populations: Concepts, Evidence, and Challenges	p. 82
Anthropogenic Change and Conservation Medicine
Climate Change and Infectious Disease Dynamics	p. 111
Wildlife Health in a Changing North: A Model for Global Environmental Change	p. 122
Habitat Fragmentation and Infectious Disease Ecology	p. 135
Wildlife Trade and the Spread of Disease	p. 151
Bushmeat and Infectious Disease Emergence	p. 164
Human Migration	p. 179
Emerging Infectious Diseases and Conservation Medicine
Are Bats Exceptional Viral Reservoirs?	p. 195
SARS: A Case Study for Factors Driving Disease Emergence	p. 213
H5N1 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza: Breaking the Rules in Disease Emergence	p. 228
Bartonellosis: An Emerging Disease of Humans, Domestic Animals, and Wildlife	p. 239
Brucella ceti and Brucella pinnipedialis Infections in Marine Mammals	p. 257
Infectious Cancers in Wildlife	p. 270
From Protozoan Infection in Monarch Butterflies to Colony Collapse Disorder in Bees: Are Emerging Infectious Diseases Proliferating in the Insect World?	p. 284
Fungal Diseases in Neotropical Forests Disturbed by Humans	p. 302
Emerging Infectious Diseases in Fisheries and Aquaculture	p. 312
Southern Sea Otters as Sentinels for Land-Sea Pathogens and Pollutants	p. 328
Ecotoxicology and Conservation Medicine
Ecotoxicology: Bridging Wildlife, Humans, and Ecosystems	p. 345
Wildlife Toxicology: Environmental Contaminants and Their National and International Regulation	p. 359
Marine Biotoxins: Emergence of Harmful Algal Blooms as Health Threats to Marine Wildlife	p. 374
Beluga from the St. Lawrence Estuary: A Case Study of Cancer and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons	p. 390
Place-Based Conservation Medicine
Sense and Serendipity: Conservation and Management of Bison in Canada	p. 409
Pathogens, Parks, and People: The Role of Bovine Tuberculosis in South African Conservation	p. 423
Disease Ecology and Conservation of Ungulates, Wild Rabbits, and the Iberian Lynx in the Mediterranean Forest	p. 439
The Kibale EcoHealth Project: Exploring Connections Among Human Health, Animal Health, and Landscape Dynamics in Western Uganda	p. 452
Conservation Medicine in Brazil: Case Studies of Ecological Health in Practice	p. 466
Linking Conservation of Biodiversity and Culture with Sustainable Health and Wellness: The Itzamma Model and Global Implications for Healing Across Cultures	p. 479
Biological Diversity and Human Health: Using Plants and Traditional Ethnomedical Knowledge to Improve Public Health and Conservation Programs in Micronesia	p. 493
Applied Techniques of Conservation Medicine
Human Health in the Biodiversity Hotspots: Applications of Geographic Information System Technology and Implications for Conservation	p. 505
Determining When Parasites of Amphibians Are Conservation Threats to their Hosts: Methods and Perspectives	p. 521
Strategies for Wildlife Disease Surveillance	p. 539
Wildlife Health Monitoring Systems in North America: From Sentinel Species to Public Policy	p. 552
Epidemiologic Investigation of Infectious Pathogens in Marine Mammals: The Importance of Serum Banks and Statistical Analysis	p. 563
Sorta Situ: The New Reality of Management Conditions for Wildlife Populations in the Absence of "Wild" Spaces	p. 576
Modeling Population Viability and Extinction Risk in the Presence of Parasitism	p. 590
Using Mathematical Models in a Unified Approach to Predicting the Next Emerging Infectious Disease	p. 607
Index	p. 619
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