The primary aim of the study is to understand the role that migratory birds play in spreading various disease causing agents around the world. Wildlife has been implicated as a vector, capable of transmitting, or as an environmental reservoir, capable of storing, different types of viral and bacterial pathogens. In this project, the researchers will capture, tag, collect blood and parasite samples from birds belonging to ten different species that stop over in Israel to feed and rest during migration. These birds migrate between breeding sites in Europe and Asia and overwintering sites in Africa. Individual birds will be tested for exposure to avian influenza virus and Newcastle Disease virus, the presence of salmonella bacteria, lice and ticks, and their general state-of-health will be assessed. Many of the animals will be fitted with GPS tags that record the movement and locations of individuals as they migrate, breed, and overwinter over a period of many months to several years. In addition, this study will provide new methods and tools for describing and predicting disease transmission by migrating birds. These tools will be useful both for human and livestock health, as well as for the conservation and management of wildlife. They will be made available to the ecological disease research community and for educational purposes at high school and colleges.
The scientific aim of the study is to advance knowledge of how migration impacts the evolutionary ecology of hosts and pathogens within migratory host populations and also to understand this within a community of multiple species residing in an area ephemerally used by migratory populations. This will be achieved by comparing the serological, immunological and physiological state of resident and migratory subpopulations within Israel with individuals opportunistically sampled in breeding and overwinter grounds, at sites revealed by movement information obtained from GPS and data-logging tags. These individual-health data, high resolution movement data as well as pathogen genomic data, will be analyzed to assess relationships in timing, intensity and spread of diseases within and beyond Israel. Agent-based computational models will be constructed using the Nova modeling platform and used to assess relationships among correlated variables. In addition, these models will be use to predict responses of disease systems to both land-use practices and global climate change.
