Abstract
Simple SummaryParasitic helminths represent one of the most pervasive challenges to livestock, and their intensity and distribution will be influenced by climate change. There is a need for long-term predictions to identify potential risks and highlight opportunities for control. We explore the approaches to modelling future helminth risk to livestock under climate change. One of the limitations to model creation is the lack of purpose driven data collection. We also conclude that models need to include a broad view of the livestock system to generate meaningful predictions.Climate change is a driving force for livestock parasite risk. This is especially true for helminths including the nematodes Haemonchus contortus, Teladorsagia circumcincta, Nematodirus battus, and the trematode Fasciola hepatica, since survival and development of free-living stages is chiefly affected by temperature and moisture. The paucity of long term predictions of helminth risk under climate change has driven us to explore optimal modelling approaches and identify current bottlenecks to generating meaningful predictions. We classify approaches as correlative or mechanistic, exploring their strengths and limitations. Climate is one aspect of a complex system and, at the farm level, husbandry has a dominant influence on helminth transmission. Continuing environmental change will necessitate the adoption of mitigation and adaptation strategies in husbandry. Long term predictive models need to have the architecture to incorporate these changes. Ultimately, an optimal modelling approach is likely to combine mechanistic processes and physiological thresholds with correlative bioclimatic modelling, incorporating changes in livestock husbandry and disease control. Irrespective of approach, the principal limitation to parasite predictions is the availability of active surveillance data and empirical data on physiological responses to climate variables. By combining improved empirical data and refined models with a broad view of the livestock system, robust projections of helminth risk can be developed.
Highlights
Climate change has been implicated as a driving force for recent parasite range expansions, and efforts have been made to model the relationship between pathogen levels and climate
The increase in these helminths in recent years [1,2,3,4,5] has been attributed to climate change, since the survival of the free-living stages is affected by temperature and moisture, and larval development rate is highly temperature dependent [6,7,8,9]
The limitations of correlative models are being addressed through continued development of statistical methodologies, led by work in both conservation and invasive species control; there is scope for these emerging approaches to be applied to predicting livestock parasite risk
Summary
Climate change has been implicated as a driving force for recent parasite range expansions, and efforts have been made to model the relationship between pathogen levels and climate. The increase in these helminths in recent years [1,2,3,4,5] has been attributed to climate change, since the survival of the free-living stages is affected by temperature and moisture, and larval development rate is highly temperature dependent [6,7,8,9]. The development of evidence-based risk assessments and targeted surveillance are pivotal when the welfare and economic costs of these pathogens are considered. Despite the deleterious impacts of helminths on the livestock industry and their dependence on climatic conditions, predictions of long-term threats to animal health from climate change have so far concentrated on heat stress [11,12,13,14,15,16]. We highlight the obstacles to generating meaningful predictions and the need for a multidisciplinary approach
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