Vaccination and monitoring strategies for epidemic prevention and detection in the Channel Island fox (Urocyon littoralis).

ABSTRACT: Disease transmission and epidemic prevention are top conservation concerns for wildlife managers, especially for small, isolated populations. Previous studies have shown that the course of an epidemic within a heterogeneous host population is strongly influenced by whether pathogens are introduced to regions of relatively high or low host densities. This raises the question of how disease monitoring and vaccination programs are influenced by spatial heterogeneity in host distributions. We addressed this question by modeling vaccination and monitoring strategies for the Channel Island fox (Urocyon littoralis), which has a history of substantial population decline due to introduced disease. We simulated various strategies to detect and prevent epidemics of rabies and canine distemper using a

SUBMITTER: Sanchez JN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7233584 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature