Abstract
AimDecisions on wildlife conservation, management, and epidemiological risk are best based on robust evidence. The continual improvement of species distributions, such that they can be relied upon in decision‐making, is important. Here we seek to refine aspects of a generic modelling approach and improve the utility of species distribution maps.LocationGreat Britain (GB).MethodsWe applied a modeling framework based on hierarchical Bayesian species distribution models exploiting opportunistic occurrence records from citizen science datasets to predict both current and potential distributions for each of the six deer species known to be present in GB. Using the resulting maps, we performed a simple analysis of the overlap between species to illustrate possible contact, which we interpret as the relative risk of potential disease spread given an introduction.ResultsPredicted distribution maps showed good agreement with the broader scale occurrence reported by a recent national deer survey with an average True Skill Statistics and AUC of 0.69 and 0.89, respectively. Aggregation of the maps for all species highlighted regions of central and eastern England as well as parts of Scotland where extensive areas of range overlap could result in interspecific contact with consequences for risk assessments for diseases of deer. However, if populations are allowed to expand to their predicted potential, then areas of overlap, and therefore disease interspecific transmission risk, will become extensive and widespread across all of mainland Britain.Main conclusionsThe generic modeling approach outlined performed well across all of the deer species tested, offering a robust and reliable tool through which current and potential animal distributions can be estimated and presented. Our application, intended to inform quantitative risk assessments, demonstrates the practical use of such outputs to generate the valuable evidence required to inform policy decisions on issues such as management strategy.
Highlights
The wise management of natural resources demands high‐quality information on which to base sound decisions (Regan et al, 2005)
The British Deer Society (BDS) distribution survey which, using information collected from members and other sources, has provided 100 km2 resolution distribution maps every five years since 2002 for each of the six deer species known to inhabit Great Britain (GB)
We demonstrate the value of the national deer distribution estimates that we generate as a contribution to a future quantitative risk assessment for diseases that can be shared between multiple species, such chronic wasting disease
Summary
The wise management of natural resources demands high‐quality information on which to base sound decisions (Regan et al, 2005). Deer can inflict substantial damage to woodland and crops (Putman & Moore, 1998) as well as providing a reservoir for the transmission of diseases, some of which can affect livestock and human health, for example, bovine tuberculosis (Ward & Smith, 2012) and foot‐and‐mouth disease (Böhm, White, Chambers, Smith, & Hutchings, 2007) Their populations may be threat‐ ened by the introduction of novel diseases, such as chronic wasting disease (Ricci et al, 2017) which has severely impacted some cervid species in the USA (Monello et al, 2014) and has recently been re‐ ported in Europe (Benestad, Mitchell, Simmons, Ytrehus, & Vikøren, 2016). Our maps can be used to inform policy de‐ velopment and decision‐making by exploring the current scale and location of range overlap (potential contact) between species, as well as the potential extent of their future overlap (once all species have reached equilibrium), which could be interpreted as a future pattern of relative risk of interspecific disease spread across the country
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