Abstract
Doñana National Park (DNP) in southern Spain is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve where commercial hunting and wildlife artificial feeding do not take place and traditional cattle husbandry still exists. Herein, we hypothesized that Mycobacterium bovis infection prevalence in wild ungulates will depend on host ecology and that variation in prevalence will reflect variation in the interaction between hosts and environmental risk factors. Cattle bTB reactor rates increased in DNP despite compulsory testing and culling of infected animals. In this study, 124 European wild boar, 95 red deer, and 97 fallow deer were sampled from April 2006 to April 2007 and analyzed for M. bovis infection. Modelling and GIS were used to identify risk factors and intra and inter-species relationships. Infection with M. bovis was confirmed in 65 (52.4%) wild boar, 26 (27.4%) red deer and 18 (18.5%) fallow deer. In the absence of cattle, wild boar M. bovis prevalence reached 92.3% in the northern third of DNP. Wild boar showed more than twice prevalence than that in deer (p<0.001). Modelling revealed that M. bovis prevalence decreased from North to South in wild boar (p<0.001) and red deer (p<0.01), whereas no spatial pattern was evidenced for fallow deer. Infection risk in wild boar was dependent on wild boar M. bovis prevalence in the buffer area containing interacting individuals (p<0.01). The prevalence recorded in this study is among the highest reported in wildlife. Remarkably, this high prevalence occurs in the absence of wildlife artificial feeding, suggesting that a feeding ban alone would have a limited effect on wildlife M. bovis prevalence. In DNP, M. bovis transmission may occur predominantly at the intra-species level due to ecological, behavioural and epidemiological factors. The results of this study allow inferring conclusions on epidemiological bTB risk factors in Mediterranean habitats that are not managed for hunting purposes. Our results support the need to consider wildlife species for the control of bTB in cattle and strongly suggest that bTB may affect animal welfare and conservation.
Highlights
Bovine tuberculosis due to Mycobacterium bovis and closely related bacterial strains of the M. tuberculosis complex is a worldwide disease that affects a wide range of domestic and wildlife animals and humans
The models testing the effect of location revealed that a North-South gradient (Y coordinates) was significant for wild boar (Chi2 = 11.57, 1 d.f., p,0.001) and red deer (Chi2 = 6.65, 1 d.f., p,0.01), decreasing the prevalence from the North to the South (Figure 1), whereas no spatial pattern was evidenced for fallow deer
Wildlife from Coto del Rey (CR) had the highest prevalence (Figure 3).In this northern third of Donana National Park (DNP), M. bovis infection prevalence was still high among yearlings (3 out of 3 wild boar, 100%; 3/5 red deer, 60%; 1/9 fallow deer, 11%)
Summary
Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) due to Mycobacterium bovis and closely related bacterial strains of the M. tuberculosis complex is a worldwide disease that affects a wide range of domestic and wildlife animals and humans. In southern Spain, an increase in M. bovis prevalence in wild ungulates has been reported [4], and large-scale data show mean macroscopic bTB-compatible lesion prevalence of 14% in red deer (Cervus elaphus) and 42% in European wild boar (Sus scrofa). Known risk factors for bTB in wild boar include increasing age [5,8], density and spatial aggregation [9], at waterholes [8], fencing and genetic factors [10], and other habitat features [8]. Risk factors for bTB in red deer include increasing age [5], gender, males being more susceptible than females, and wild boar spatial aggregation at both feeding and watering places [8,11]. Artificial feeding of deer has been suggested as a bTB risk factor in Spain [11] and elsewhere [13]
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