ETSI Montes, Forestal y del Medio Natural, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Department of Biology (Botany), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2024 Feb 10;14(1):3414. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-53869-5.
African swine fever (ASF) is an infectious and highly fatal disease affecting wild and domestic swine, which is unstoppably spreading worldwide. In Europe, wild boars are one of the main drivers of spread, transmission, and maintenance of the disease. Landscape connectivity studies are the main discipline to analyze wild-species dispersal networks, and it can be an essential tool to predict dispersal-wild boar movement routes and probabilities and therefore the associated potential ASF spread through the suitable habitat. We aimed to integrate wild boar habitat connectivity predictions with their occurrence, population abundance, and ASF notifications to calculate the impact (i.e., the capacity of a landscape feature to favor ASF spread) and the risk (i.e., the likelihood of a habitat patch becoming infected) of wild boar infection across Europe. Furthermore, we tested the accuracy of the risk of infection by comparing the results with the temporal distribution of ASF cases. Our findings identified the areas with the highest impact and risk factors within Europe's central and Eastern regions where ASF is currently distributed. Additionally, the impact factor was 31 times higher on habitat patches that were infected vs non-infected, proving the utility of the proposed approach and the key role of wild boar movements in ASF-spread. All data and resulting maps are openly accessible and usable.
非洲猪瘟(ASF)是一种影响野生和家养猪的传染性和高致命性疾病,正在全球范围内不可阻挡地传播。在欧洲,野猪是疾病传播、传播和维持的主要驱动力之一。景观连通性研究是分析野生动物扩散网络的主要学科,它可以成为预测野猪扩散-野猪运动路线和概率的重要工具,从而通过适宜的栖息地预测相关的潜在 ASF 传播。我们的目的是将野猪栖息地连通性预测与其发生、种群丰度和 ASF 通知相结合,以计算野猪感染的影响(即景观特征促进 ASF 传播的能力)和风险(即栖息地斑块感染的可能性)在整个欧洲。此外,我们通过将结果与 ASF 病例的时间分布进行比较来测试感染风险的准确性。我们的研究结果确定了欧洲中部和东部地区目前 ASF 分布地区的高影响和风险因素。此外,受感染的栖息地斑块的影响因素比未受感染的栖息地斑块高 31 倍,证明了所提出方法的实用性以及野猪运动在 ASF 传播中的关键作用。所有数据和生成的地图均可公开获取和使用。