As Africa's human population continues to grow exponentially, the proportion of the continent's land surface impacted by extensive farming practices is rapidly increasing. Therefore, understanding the ecological dynamics at the interface between agricultural production systems and wilderness areas is becoming ever more important. A main concern in this regard is disease transmission between wild and domestic herbivores. With funding from the International Opportunities Fund, we will establish an international team of experts aiming to tackle these challenges using a multi-disciplinary approach involving the end users. This proposal focuses on the ubiquitous gastro-intestinal helminth infections which are associated with both significant losses to livestock production and concerns about interference with natural ecological processes in areas of conservation value. Specifically, we wish to seize an opportunity to extend a collaboration between UK scientists and expertise in veterinary science at Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) which has emerged during current NERC-funded research activities. For this purpose, we will implement a collaborative pilot project which would pave the way for a long-term research partnership. The project will collect data on infection rates in livestock and coexisting wild ungulates from our established savanna study system, allowing us to test our novel theoretical framework for understanding the roles of individual host species in the persistence of selected model parasite species. The wider aim is to obtain proof of concept on the basis of which we can apply for large scale funding. End-user involvement in project design is ensured by hosting scoping workshops. The long-term goal of the research collaboration is to provide recommendations for adaptive management of livestock in natural savanna ecosystems on a scientific basis, thereby simultaneously improving human welfare and supporting biodiversity conservation. The project moreover adds value to our current NERC-funded research on the ecological drivers of mixed-species group formation among savanna herbivores by allowing us to estimate costs from parasite transmission in our multi-layered social network analysis.

The direct dependence of humans on ecosystem services is by far strongest in developing regions where poverty restricts access to resources. This dependency also makes people in developing countries more sensitive to climate change than their developed counterparts. Increasing human populations deteriorates natural habitat, biodiversity and ecosystems services which spiral into poverty and low human welfare. This calls for innovative solutions that encompass the entire socio-ecological-economic system, as recognized on a global scale in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. However, innovative and practical solutions require downscaling to regional levels for identifying concrete sets of drivers of change. For Africa specifically, the interplay of human population growth, land use change, climate change and human well-being is a major challenge. This project focuses on the Serengeti-Maasai Mara Ecosystem and associated agricultural areas, a region in East Africa that encompasses parts of Kenya and Tanzania. The ecosystem is world-famous for key aspects of its biodiversity, such as the migration of 1.3 million wildebeest. This ‘flagship ecosystem’ role will enhance the international interest in the project. In this project, internationally leading researchers from Norway, the Netherlands, Scotland, Denmark and Germany are teaming up with strong local partners in Tanzania and Kenya. The research will be organised in seven interlinked work packages: 1) assemble and integrate the so far separate Kenyan and Tanzanian relevant data on the region; 2) quantify the connections between human population growth, land use change, climate change and biodiversity change; 3) test how biodiversity change leads to changes in key ecosystem services; 4) quantify the dependence of human livelihoods on these ecosystem services. We will implement innovative ways for communication and dissemination of the results of ‘continuous engagement’ by local stakeholders.

Peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) causes severe disease in sheep and goats, hampering sustainable livestock production and significantly contributing to human poverty and food insecurity in >70 countries majority of which are ODA where it occurs. Consequently, the Food and Agriculture Organisation is coordinating an international effort to eradicate PPRV globally by 2030. PPRV infections also occur in wildlife, which has resulted in severe disease and mass mortalities in Asia and Middle East, including in rare and endangered species underlining significant impacts of this virus upon biodiversity. In Africa, research has shown that wildlife (specifically hoofed mammals like buffalo and gazelle) can become infected with PPRV but do not exhibit clinical disease. Therefore, determining infection rates where healthy animals are infected relies on detecting anti-PPRV antibodies in the animals' serum, i.e. blood testing. Better understanding of PPRV epidemiology in wildlife is critical for the success of the Global PPRV Eradication Program, for example, whether PPRV spills over into wildlife from infected livestock or whether wildlife can spread and maintain PPRV in an asymptomatic state. To answer this question in the GCRF PPR we collected sera from buffalo and Grant's gazelle using randomized sampling in order to obtain an indicationof the true PPRV seroprevalence across the Greater Serengei ecosystem, a complex PPRV-endemic ecosystem, inclusive of both National Park and mixed wildlife livestock areas like the Ngorongoro. In mixed systems the PPR has significant impacts in small ruminants and associated livelihoods and infects multiple host species. Our initial analysis of the wildlife sera from the GCRF and earlier studies under BBSRC ANIHWA indicated that current serological tests (such as ELISA) may not perform adequately with samples from atypical wild hosts compared tosheep and goats. This current project seeks to address the clear need, highlighted by our GCRF study and now by global policy-makers at FAO, to examine availableserological tests in wildlife species, to compare their performance, determine cut-offs for endemic countries. To achieve this, our project brings together expertise from Europe (Royal Veterinary College, ; University of Glasgow, Pirbright Institute, UK; IAEA FAO Joint Division Seibersdorf, Germany, , CIRAD, France) and our ODA partners in Tanzania (SACIDs SUA, Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute, Kenya Wildlife Service). Two novel diagnostic tests, which have clear practical advantages over other existing tests, and which have been developed and published by European partner labs, will be shared and evaluated against a panel of sera at an especially convened workshop of all partner laboratories at IAEA in Austria. These sera will include aliquots from ELISA and VNT tested sera to be provided by Pirbright. These tests will then be transferred to partner laboratories and the regional centre in SACIDs SUA. Training, test set-up and testing of the sera will be done at SACIDS SUA to achieve the second and key objective of establishing a regional PPR research laboratory in eastern Africa. Analysis of the GCRF sera with the new testing protocol provide accurate epidemiological information on PPRV infection rates in wildlife within the Greater Serengeti ecosystem to inform effective routes to PPRV control and eradication. We will publish new test protocols for PPRV in atypical hosts and engage with OIE and FAO to promote these as a standard in the Global PPRV eradication programme. The main outcome of this project will be improved capacity in PPR research and surveillance, in a critical region for PPR persistence, enable use of atypical hosts as sentinels of infection and, inform on the potential risk of disease in wildlife and other hosts to the Global Eradication strategy

The emergence of the viral disease, peste des petits ruminants (PPR) across Asia and Africa, affecting some of the poorest and most challenged human communities on earth, demands urgent action to mitigate its immediate and ongoing insidious impacts on domestic and wild ruminants. PPR is a very severe disease of sheep and goats that is very common in East Africa causing high mortality of up to 100%, and loss of milk and meat. It threatens the food security and livelihoods of pastoralists and small-holder farmers. It also threatens wildlife resources, as die-off of rare and endangered wild caprines in Asia has shown. Over the past few years there has been much discussion at international and national levels about the control and possible eradication of PPR, and in early 2015 a global PPR eradication programme was launched. Since the emergence of PPR in Kenya and Tanzania in 2006-2008, there have been several vaccination campaigns to limit its impact on livestock keepers but outbreaks continue to occur, and lack of effective surveillance means that it is unclear how and where the virus is persisting. Vaccination is usually applied in response to outbreaks if funds are available, which helps to reduce livestock keepers' immediate losses due to the disease, but low levels of vaccination coverage could be contributing to virus persistence. A more pragmatic but research-driven approach is needed to halt PPR virus persistence and spread in East Africa, as well as in infected and at-risk areas of Africa, Asia and Europe. The project aims to study the wildlife and livestock populations in the Greater Serengeti ecosystem, how they interact with each other, and how the interaction of multiple susceptible species might contribute to persistence of PPR infection making disease control more challenging in a multi-host compared to a single host system. Based on our previous studies we know that some common wildlife species can be infected with PPR virus, such as buffalo, wildebeest, gazelles and others. We do not know whether they are becoming infected by contact with sheep and goats, or whether the virus is circulating independently among wildlife. The project will map the livestock and wildlife populations, their numbers, how they move and the type of contact between wildlife and livestock. It will measure the level of PPR infection in the wildlife by conducting a blood-sampling survey to test for PPR antibodies. It will measure the frequency of disease outbreaks in sheep and goat flocks as reported by farmers and through interviews with farmers and flock visits, in sites with different levels and patterns of livestock-wildlife contact. Putting all this information together, we will be able to plan the best way to carry out PPR vaccination in the sheep and goat population to eliminate infection in a short period of time, and the best way to carry out surveillance in both small stock and wildlife to monitor PPR infection and disease. The project will be carried out by researchers from the Royal Veterinary College, University College London and CIRAD, France, working together with Kenyan and Tanzanian veterinary services, researchers and wildlife authorities and local institutions, and the local livestock keeping communities. The valuable information gained from this study will be the first step towards eliminating PPR from this ecosystem and the lessons learned will be applicable in other parts of Africa and Asia. In addition to the new knowledge gained, reducing the impact of diseases like PPR will allow farmers, particularly women, in these areas to be more productive, to improve their food security and livelihoods. This comes at a critical time of transition to other livelihoods, with simmering tensions around land use, agriculture and biodiversity conservation, and the increasing effects of climate change and drought. Better disease control will allow people to be more resilient during this socio-economic transition.

What drives the abundance and distribution of animal species in space and time? This central question in ecology and conservation has so far been approached mainly by investigating the impact of predator-prey relationships and competition for limited resources such as food. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that animals may also have substantial effects on each other by acting as critical sources of information, for example when they communicate the presence of a predator or the location of food. The potential importance of information exchange between species is evident from the widespread occurrence of mixed-species groups in nature, in taxa ranging from spiders and fish to birds and mammals. Yet, currently almost nothing is known about how the advantage of living next to valuable informants affects patterns in social attraction between species. Our study addresses this question from an integrated theoretical and empirical angle. We will build a general model to predict how information benefits shape the composition of mixed-species groups in nature. Our model will take into account the key costs and benefits from group life: (i) the information benefits from joining many eyes, ears and noses, (ii) the benefit of being close to others that may be eaten instead of you when predators attack, and (iii) the costs from increased competition over limited resources. To test our model in the real world, we focus on the mixed-species groups of herbivores dominating the African savannas in a field study. The many eyes, ears and noses in these herds are known to result in all-important information benefits when alarm signals are emitted. To determine how patterns in social attraction between species in this system depends on their value as informants, we use predator simulations and playback experiments to determine (i) the information contained in the alarm signals from each species in the community and (ii) to what extent this information is transferred between species. We will also obtain measures of the vulnerability of each herbivore species to the various predators in the community as well as costs from food competition when diets overlap. On this basis, we will be able to use social network analysis to test the role of communication (relative to other costs and benefits) as a driver of group formation between species. The savannah herbivore study will thus allow us to address fundamental questions in biology by (i) revealing which species within the community group together and why, and (ii) establishing the nature of coexistence between species: are multispecies groups mutually beneficial or do they rather form when one species parasitizes on the information produced by another? The project will provide novel insights into the basic links between species in the natural environment by integrating communication benefits into classical food-web-based models of ecosystem structure. By establishing new fundamental principles that shape the social associations between species, the study will bring a deeper understanding of ecosystem dynamics that can be critical for identifying conservation priorities. Our conceptual framework will allow conservationists to assess when declines in key species are likely to have repercussions throughout the ecosystem by affecting the survival of others, and when these indirect effects are likely to become a conservation concern for endangered species.