Emerging fungal threats to animal, plant and ecosystem health.

Effective biosecurity policies are essential to address several major sociological and environmental challenges facing humankind including existential pandemic risks, threats to food security, loss of ecosystem services and public resistance to pesticides and vaccines. Yet biosecurity is subject to multiple interpretations that include dealing with the threats from bioterrorism, managing laboratory biosafety to prevent the escape of pathogenic organisms, handling food and agricultural production systems to prevent disease introduction and addressing the threat of introduced organisms to flora, fauna and humans. The absence of a shared vision of what biosecurity encompasses means that decision-makers are often challenged to design appropriate biosecurity policies at national and global scales. The design of effective policy strategies requires an understanding of the methodological and conceptual barriers that constrain attempts to build an interdisciplinary approach to biosecurity. Here, the first thematic map of the biosecurity research landscape is undertaken to assess just how diverse the interpretation of biosecurity is amongst the global research community and the extent to which the articles published since 2000 represent a common conceptual foundation or are largely clustered within sectors. Co-citation, bibliographic coupling and co-word analyses highlighted that the field of biosecurity encompasses a wide range of domains from biochemistry through to political science, but the research supporting different sectors largely draws from a distinct literature base. While ecosystem and plant health were clustered together within the broad grouping of biological invasions, there was a clear separation from both human and animal health. Yet, there is considerable scope for the management of biological invasions to benefit from insights derived from social perspectives in human and animal health. Biosecurity remains divided by conceptual differences and specialised vocabularies that limit the effectiveness of biosecurity policies addressing biodiversity conservation, public health and food security. To overcome these constraints requires the building of a global biosecurity community that accepts a broader definition of biosecurity, avoids sectorial jargon and establishes mechanisms to cultivate interdisciplinarity through specialised collaborative centres, cross-sectorial research programmes and conceptually rich training programmes.

A vision of a One Health system for Australia: on the need to rethink our health system.

Toxicology and “One Health”: Opportunities for Multidisciplinary Collaborations

One Health - Cycling of diverse microbial communities as a connecting force for soil, plant, animal, human and ecosystem health

The climate crisis presents an urgent challenge for Earth's living creatures and the habitats in which they have been adapted to thrive. Climate-related stress presents risks to microorganisms, the stability of the functions they provide, and their maintenance of beneficial interactions with their hosts and ecosystems. Microbes move across the continuum of anthropogenic influence on Earth's ecosystems, from pristine to human-managed to fully urbanized environments. Because microbial feedback within and across this continuum exists at multiple, connected scales from molecules to ecosystem-level processes, predicting microbial responses to climate stress and their potentially wide-ranging consequences remains difficult. Here, we discuss the broad implications of microbial and microbiome responses to climate change as they interface with human, plant, and ecosystem health. For each section on human, plant and ecosystem health, we briefly discuss the state of knowledge for each and follow with proposed future research, including some directions that are promising but require more work to evaluate. We end by considering overarching microbial ecology research needs across these systems and microbial solutions under investigation as possible climate-resilient interventions to maintain human, plant, and ecosystem health. This work draws on diverse expertise to identify broad research directions across typically separated disciplines and builds a holistic framework for considering their interrelationships.

Background: The veterinarian Calvin Schwabe described as One Medicine linkages of veterinary medicine and human health that strengthen cooperation between human and animal health professionals and improve provision of health services. The terms One Health and EcoHealth were coined for the interplay of human, animal and ecosystem health. Healthy plants are essential for healthy animals and humans, but plant health and its linkages to human and animal health have rarely been described or trialed. Plantwise, an initiative led by CABI, helps establish community-based plant clinics to improve food security and reduce crop losses. Harmonization of the three health services might increase performance and health status of humans, animals and plants, with positive socioeconomic consequences particularly in remote rural areas. Aims: To describe the human, animal and plant health systems in rural Uganda and identify synergies and benefits of their closer cooperation. Methods: A systematic review on the structure and mandates of the human, animal and plant health systems to conceptualize a framework between them. The main linkages are described qualitatively by stakeholders (smallholder farmers, NGOs, researchers, health workers, administrative staff) in a rural context of Africa within a transdisciplinary approach. The selection of districts is based on agricultural livelihoods and an active network of plant health clinics. Identified synergies are evaluated and quantified by a questionnaire survey. A trial to test the most prominent joint intervention will be outlined. Expected results: An evaluation of synergies between human, animal and plant health systems that can be tested to describe benefits of closer cooperation. An established shared framework on these that facilitates the identification of further practical linkages. This approach should be valid for Uganda and any environment where smallholders depend on extension services for the health of household, livestock and crops. The framework and survey results will be presented.

UN Convention on Wetlands (RAMSAR): Implications for Human Health

UN Convention on Wetlands (RAMSAR): Implications for Human Health

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One Health benefits of five European countries adopting 1.5°C lifestyles.

Peatlands have been widely recognised as important carbon stores, ecological habitats and natural hydrological buffers. However, comparatively less attention has been given to the role of peatlands as long-term stores of pollutants, particularly toxic metals and metalloids (TMMs). Furthermore, the potential for their release is poorly understood. An improved understanding of TMM distribution and release in peatlands is critical, because climate warming risks increasing their mobilisation, through enhanced decomposition and changes to hydrological processes, with potentially significant implications for natural ecosystems and human health. The PIPES project (Pollutants In Peatlands: from sink to Source) aims to identify global “hot spots” of peatland pollutants and establish likely release mechanisms of currently inert TMMs. We use a unique combination of observational and controlled-experimental approaches to address two research questions: (1) What is the content and distribution of pollutants in global peatlands? and (2) Under what conditions, and through which pathways, are these pollutants most likely to be released? In this presentation, we share early findings from both components of the PIPES project. Firstly, we present our ongoing analysis of the distribution of TMMs in global peatlands, with a primarily focus on spatial patterns identified across our comprehensive network of sites in the UK and Ireland. We quantify the total content of TMMs using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) in peat cores compiled by a network of > 90 international collaborators. Secondly, we present preliminary results from controlled environmental simulations of TMM release in peat monoliths from subarctic Sweden. We explore both pore-water and atmospheric release under scenarios of drought, climate warming and a shallow burn. Our findings provide crucial new insights into the potential fate of pollutants in global peatlands and their implications for human health and natural ecosystems.

Soil contamination with Cd and Pb is a worldwide problem which not only degrades the environment but also poses a serious threat for human and animal health. Phytoremediation of these contaminated soils using halophytic plants like quinoa presents an opportunity to clean the soils and use them for crop production. The current experiment was performed to evaluate the Cd and Pb tolerance potential of quinoa and subsequently its implications for human health. Three weeks old quinoa seedlings were exposed to Cd (30, 60 and 90mgkg-1) and Pb (50, 100 and 150mgkg-1) levels along with a control. The results revealed that plant height decreased at highest levels of soil Cd and Pb. Shoot, root and seed dry weight decreased with increasing levels of soil Cd and Pb. Tissue Cd and Pb concentrations increased with increasing levels of Cd and Pb in soil, the highest Cd was found in roots while the lowest in seeds. The highest Pb concentration was found in shoots at low Pb level, while in roots at high level of Pb. Increasing levels of Cd and Pb stimulated the activities of measured antioxidant enzymes and decreased membrane stability index. The health risk assessments of Cd and Pb revealed that hazard quotient was < 1 for both the metals. However, the results of total hazard quotient showed that value was < 1 for Pb and 1.19 for Cd showing potential carcinogenicity. This study demonstrates that quinoa has good phytoremediation potential for Cd and Pb however, the risk of Cd toxicity is challenging for human health.

Interconnections between the food system and antimicrobial resistance: A systems-informed umbrella review from a One Health perspective.

Biofilms are matrix‐enclosed communities that represent the most dominant and active mode of microbial life on Earth. Because biofilms are inherently more productive than any equivalent planktonic community, they are of great relevance to all environments they inhabit. However, their existence and importance are still poorly known by the general public, conservation practitioners and environmental policymakers. Most micro‐organisms of multicellular organisms (including humans, animals and plants) occur in the form of true biofilms or biofilm‐like structures that play vital roles in their development, physiology and immunity. Conversely, some biofilms can have a negative effect on host health. Biofilms growing on non‐biological surfaces are essential components of many terrestrial and marine ecosystems: they form the basis of food webs and ensure nutrient cycling and bioremediation in natural systems. However, environmental biofilms can promote the persistence of human pathogens, produce harmful toxins, foul and corrode surfaces in natural and man‐made settings; all of which can have significant health and economic implications. There is a knowledge gap about the roles of biofilms in the epidemiology of wildlife emerging infectious diseases, yet these pose a major threat to public health, biodiversity and sustainability. The drivers of global environmental change all affect biofilm structure and functions. The consequences for host and ecosystem health are, however, poorly understood. While the concept of a healthy microbiome (as opposed to dysbiosis) is emerging in medicine and conservation biology, the concept of a healthy biofilm remains to be defined in environmental sciences. Here, we use an integrative approach to (a) review current knowledge on the roles of biofilms growing on biological and non‐biological interfaces for the health of multicellular organisms and ecosystems, and (b) provide future research directions to address identified knowledge gaps. Giving the biofilm life‐form its full importance will help understand the effects of global environmental change on these communities and, in turn, on human, animal, plant and ecosystem health.

Exploring the evolution of ecosystem health and sustainable zoning: A perspective based on the contributions of climate change and human activities