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Disease Epidemic (disease + epidemic)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Life Sciences	62%

Selected Abstracts

On the Political Economy of Plant Disease Epidemics: Capita Selecta in Historical Epidemiology

PLANT PATHOLOGY, Issue 5 2009
Eric Boa
No abstract is available for this article. [source]

White pines, Ribes, and blister rust: a review and synthesis

FOREST PATHOLOGY, Issue 3-4 2010
Brian W. Geils
Summary For over a century, white pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola) has linked white pines (Strobus) with currants and gooseberries (Ribes) in a complex and serious disease epidemic in Asia, Europe, and North America. Because of ongoing changes in climate, societal demands for forests and their amenities, and scientific advances in genetics and proteomics, our current understanding and management of the white pine blister rust pathosystem has become outdated. Here, we present a review and synthesis of international scope on the biology and management of blister rust, white pines, Ribes, and other hosts. In this article, we provide a geographical and historical background, describe the taxonomy and life cycle of the rust, discuss pathology and ecology, and introduce a series of invited papers. These review articles summarize the literature on white pines, Ribes, and blister rust with respect to their status, threats, and management through genetics and silviculture. Although the principal focus is on North America, the different epidemics in Europe and Asia are also described. In the final article, we discuss several of the key observations and conclusions from the preceding review articles and identify prudent actions for research and management of white pine blister rust. [source]

Globalization, coca-colonization and the chronic disease epidemic: can the Doomsday scenario be averted?

JOURNAL OF INTERNAL MEDICINE, Issue 3 2000
P. Zimmet
Zimmet P (International Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, Australia). Globalization, coca-colonization and the chronic disease epidemic: can the Doomsday scenario be averted? J Intern Med 2000; 247: 301,310. There are at present approximately 110 million people with diabetes in the world but this number will reach over 220 million by the year 2010, the majority of them with type 2 diabetes. Thus there is an urgent need for strategies to prevent the emerging global epidemic of type 2 diabetes to be implemented. Tackling diabetes must be part of an integrated program that addresses lifestyle related disorders. The prevention and control of type 2 diabetes and the other major noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) can be cost- and health-effective through an integrated (i.e. horizontal) approach to noncommunicable diseases disease prevention and control. With the re-emergence of devastating communicable diseases including AIDS, the Ebola virus and tuberculosis, the pressure is on international and regional agencies to see that the noncommunicable disease epidemic is addressed. The international diabetes and public health communities need to adopt a more pragmatic view of the epidemic of type 2 diabetes and other noncommunicable diseases. The current situation is a symptom of globalization with respect to its social, cultural, economic and political significance. Type 2 diabetes will not be prevented by traditional medical approaches; what is required are major and dramatic changes in the socio-economic and cultural status of people in developing countries and the disadvantaged, minority groups in developed nations. The international diabetes and public health communities must lobby and mobilize politicians, other international agencies such as UNDP, UNICEF, and the World Bank as well as other international nongovernmental agencies dealing with the noncommunicable diseases to address the socio-economic, behavioural, nutritional and public health issues that have led to the type 2 diabetes and noncommunicable diseases epidemic. A multidisciplinary Task Force representing all parties which can contribute to a reversal of the underlying socio-economic causes of the problem is an urgent priority. [source]

Molecular evidence for a founder effect in invasive house finch (Carpodacus mexicanus) populations experiencing an emergent disease epidemic

MOLECULAR ECOLOGY, Issue 1 2006
DANA M. HAWLEY
Abstract The impact of founder events on levels of genetic variation in natural populations remains a topic of significant interest. Well-documented introductions provide a valuable opportunity to examine how founder events influence genetic diversity in invasive species. House finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) are passerine birds native to western North America, with the large eastern North American population derived from a small number of captive individuals released in the 1940s. Previous comparisons using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers found equivalent levels of diversity in eastern and western populations, suggesting that any genetic effects of the founder event were ameliorated by the rapid growth of the newly established population. We used an alternative marker system, 10 highly polymorphic microsatellites, to compare levels of genetic diversity between four native and five introduced house finch populations. In contrast to the AFLP comparisons, we found significantly lower allelic richness and heterozygosity in introduced populations across all loci. Three out of five introduced populations showed significant reductions in the ratio of the number of alleles to the allele size range, a within-population characteristic of recent bottlenecks. Finally, native and introduced populations showed significant pairwise differences in allele frequencies in every case, with stronger isolation by distance within the introduced than native range. Overall, our results provide compelling molecular evidence for a founder effect during the introduction of eastern house finches that reduced diversity levels at polymorphic microsatellite loci and may have contributed to the emergence of the Mycoplasma epidemic which recently swept the eastern range of this species. [source]

Possible contemporary evolution in an endangered species, the Santa Cruz Island fox

ANIMAL CONSERVATION, Issue 2 2009
H. M. Swarts
Abstract An ability to mount rapid evolutionary responses to environmental change may be necessary for species persistence in a human-dominated world. We present evidence of the possibility of such contemporary evolution in the anti-predator behaviour of the critically endangered Santa Cruz Island fox Urocyon littoralis. In 1994, golden eagles colonized Santa Cruz Island, CA and devastated the predator-naïve, endemic island fox population by 95% within 10 years. In 1992, just before the arrival of golden eagles, foxes showed substantial diurnal activity, but diurnal activity was 37.0% lower in 2003,2007, after golden eagle colonization; concurrently, overall activity declined and nocturnal activity increased. Moreover, on nearby Santa Catalina Island, where golden eagles were absent but where the fox population recently crashed due to a disease epidemic, remaining foxes were significantly more diurnally active than were those on Santa Cruz Island. The weight of evidence suggests that the change in activity pattern was a response to predation, not to low population density, and that this was probably a heritable rather than a learned behavioural trait. This behavioural change may allow for prolonged island fox persistence, but also potentially represents a loss of behavioural diversity in fox populations. [source]

Myths and facts on ratadas: Bamboo blooms, rainfall peaks and rodent outbreaks in South America

AUSTRAL ECOLOGY, Issue 3 2003
FABIAN M. JAKSIC
Abstract, ,Ratadas' are rodent irruptions or outbreaks that have been recorded in South America since the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. The notion that ratadas are associated with bamboo flowering and subsequent mast seeding at cycles of 30 years has appeared in the literature since the late 1800s. Based on 63 well-documented cases, we show that not only are ratadas associated with bamboo blooming, but also many are associated with rainfall peaks, and that these two outbreak types are geographically interspersed over South America. In addition, we dispel the notion that South American bamboo blooms occur every 30 years, which may only be the case for Merostachys fistulosa. For other species the modal cycles occur every 14 (Merostachys spp.), 12 (Chusquea quila and/or valdiviensis) or 14 years (Chusquea coleou). We also propose the hypothesis that rainfall-associated ratadas are ultimately caused by the occurrence of El Niño, and discuss the possible population dynamic mechanisms underlying rodent outbreaks in South America. Aiming at setting a standardized framework for spatial and temporal comparisons, we propose a trapping protocol and a threshold density for assigning the ,ratada' label. Several of the mice implicated in ratadas are reservoirs of emerging diseases, thus emphasizing the need for predictive power to forecast disease epidemics that affect human populations. Further, ratadas may be viewed as pulsed resources, thus enabling us to learn more of the ways communities respond to such intermittent inputs. [source]