Claudio Bozzuto

• Managing Director at Wildlife Analysis GmbH, Zurich

1. Conservation science can be most effective in its decision-support role when seeking answers to clearly formulated questions of direct management relevance. Emerging wildlife diseases, a driver of global biodiversity loss, illustrate the challenges of performing this role: in spite of considerable research, successful disease mitigation is uncom...

Many studies document negative inbreeding effects on individuals, and conservation efforts to preserve rare species routinely employ strategies to reduce inbreeding. Despite this, there are few clear examples in nature of inbreeding decreasing the growth rates of populations, and the extent of population-level effects of inbreeding in the wild rema...

The basic reproduction number, R0, determines the rate of spread of a communicable disease and therefore gives fundamental information needed to plan public health interventions. Using mortality records, we estimated the rate of spread of COVID-19 among 160 counties and county-aggregates in the USA at the start of the epidemic. We show that most of...

Over the last two decades, many studies have emphasized the value of natural history collections (NHCs) for ecological and evolutionary research. Furthermore, with the current biodiversity crisis worsening by the day, these specimens offer invaluable insights into past changes, directly helping researchers to understand the current status and to pr...

Ecological and evolutionary predictions are being increasingly employed to inform decision-makers confronted with intensifying pressures on biodiversity. For these efforts to effectively guide conservation actions, knowing the limit of predictability is pivotal. In this study, we provide realistic expectations for the enterprise of predicting chang...

Dear colleagues, this is a HIGHLY experimental thing I’m doing: to here upload an AI-generated podcast (with two voices) covering our newly published article (Sept. 2024) on freshwater crayfish communities confronted with crayfish plague (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/384189179, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02705060.2024.2405722). Google’s...

Wildlife diseases figure prominently among the main causes of biodiversity loss worldwide. Especially fungal and fungus-like pathogens are on the rise, wreaking havoc across the tree of life by threatening species persistence and destabilizing ecosystems. A worrisome example are freshwater crayfish species in Eurasia and Oceania, facing the dual ch...

Wildlife diseases figure prominently among the main causes of biodiversity loss worldwide. Especially fungal and fungus-like pathogens are on the rise, wreaking havoc across the tree of life by threatening species persistence and destabilizing ecosystems. A worrisome example are freshwater crayfish species in Eurasia and Oceania, facing the dual ch...

Der Nationale Aktionsplan PSM (Bundesrat 2017) hat zum Ziel, das von PSM ausgehende Risiko für Nichtzielorganismen zu reduzieren. Die Amphibien sind eine Organismengruppe, die im aquatischen wie auch im terrestrischen Lebensraum PSM exponiert sein können. Experimentelle Studien haben gezeigt, dass auch zugelassene PSM bei Amphibien Mortalität auslö...

Ecological and evolutionary predictions are being increasingly employed to inform decision-makers confronted with intensifying pressures menacing life on Earth. For these efforts to effectively guide conservation actions, knowing the limit of predictability is pivotal. In this study, we provide realistic expectations about the enterprise of predict...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many quantitative approaches were employed to predict the course of disease spread. However, forecasting faces the challenge of inherently unpredictable spread dynamics, setting a limit to the accuracy of all models. Here, we analyze COVID-19 data from the USA to explain variation among jurisdictions in disease spread...

[English abstract, chapter in German] The wild boar is one of the most widespread mammal species on Earth. In recent decades, populations have increased considerably in numbers in many countries, along with a notable expansion in range. Most wild boar populations are regulated by hunting, not least to reduce the damage caused to agriculture and nat...

[English abstract, chapter in German] Over the last two decades, many studies have emphasized the value of natural history collections for ecological and evolutionary research. Furthermore, with the current biodiversity crisis worsening by the day, these specimens offer invaluable insights to better understand past and current environmental changes...

Data available for COVID-19 in the USA make it possible to assess the dynamics of disease spread with 20:20 hindsight. Here, we analyze archived data to explain variation among counties and states in the cyclicity and predictability (that is, the extent to which predictions are possible) of disease dynamics, using a combination of statistical and s...

One way to reduce the impacts of invading wildlife diseases is setting up fences that would reduce the spread of pathogens by limiting connectivity, similarly to exclusion fences that are commonly used to conserve threatened species against invasive predators. One of the problems with fences is that, while they may have the short-term benefit of im...

While discussion of vaccine allocation has centered around who should be prioritized (e.g., health care personnel and the elderly), we argue that vaccines should also be allocated to jurisdictions (e.g., counties within the USA) with the greatest immunization thresholds needed for ending the epidemic. At the current rate of vaccine distribution (Ma...

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-01679-0.

1. Recent studies have unveiled drastic declines in the diversity and numbers of insects worldwide, unfolding over the last decades. These results have brought insects to the forefront of conservation attention, ranging from mitigation actions planned by dedicated conservation agencies to efforts undertaken by the general public. Further, the conse...

Emerging wildlife diseases are taking a heavy toll on animal and plant species worldwide. Mitigation, particularly in the initial epidemic phase, is hindered by uncertainty about the epidemiology and management of emerging diseases, but also by vague or poorly defined objectives. Here, we use a quantitative analysis to assess how the decision conte...

1. Demographic changes can decrease the intrinsic population growth rate of species. Detecting these changes from ecological time series, however, is particularly challenging for small and declining populations, precisely the type of population that might urgently need targeted management responses. 2. Here, we present a statistical method to detec...

The basic reproduction number, R0, determines the rate of spread of a communicable disease and therefore gives fundamental information needed to plan public health interventions. Using mortality records, we estimated the rate of spread of COVID-19 among 160 counties and county- aggregates in the USA. Here, we show that most of the high among-county...

We estimated the initial rate of spread (r0) and basic reproduction number (R0) for States in the USA experiencing COVID-19 epidemics by analyzing death data time series using a time-varying autoregressive state-space model. The initial spread varied greatly among States, with the highest r0 = 0.31 [0.23, 0.39] (95% CI) in New York State, correspon...

Emerging wildlife diseases are taking a heavy toll on animal and plant species worldwide. Mitigation, particularly in the initial epidemic phase, is hindered by uncertainty about the epidemiology and management of emerging diseases, but also by vague or poorly defined objectives. Here, we use a quantitative analysis to assess how the decision conte...

Wild boars easily adapt to highly diverse habitats. As a consequence, these animals currently represent the most widespread ungulate species worldwide, with many publications attesting to the impressive growth in numbers and spatial spread over the last few decades. Most wild boar populations are being managed by harvesting, not least to reduce the...

The Supplementary Information file contains: Supplementary Figs. 1-4, Supplementary Tables 1-9, Supplementary Methods.

When managers seek to minimize the impacts of invading wildlife diseases, the use of fences is sometimes suggested. The idea is to reduce the spread of pathogens by limiting connectivity, similarly to the exclusion fences commonly used to conserve threatened species against invasive predators. The long-term ecological costs of fragmentation may be...

The current version (Technical report, October 2020) can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344887241

Mitigation of infectious wildlife diseases is especially challenging where pathogens affect communities of multiple host species. Although most ecological studies recognize the challenge posed by multiple‐species pathogens, the implications for management are typically assessed only qualitatively. Translating the intuitive understanding that multip...

This file contains additional methods information and figures for the article "Quantifying the burden of managing wildlife diseases in multiple host species" by Canessa S, Bozzuto C, Pasmans F and Martel A, in Conservation Biology (2019): additional information and methods for next‐generation matrix and community R0, reservoir host species, paramet...

Online Appendix to Bozzuto C & Canessa S: Impact of seasonal cycles on host-pathogen dynamics and disease mitigation for Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans. Global Ecology and Conservation 2019. The file contains additional methods information and additional figures.

Seasonal cycles have a demonstrated effect on the dynamics of human and animal diseases. However, their quantitative implications for disease mitigation in wildlife are less well studied. We quantitatively investigate the effect of seasonality on chytridiomycosis caused by Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans in European fire salamanders (Salamandra s...

The current version (Technical report) can be found here: www.researchgate.net/publication/335985917

Seasonal cycles have a demonstrated effect on the dynamics of human and animal diseases. However, their quantitative implications for disease mitigation in wildlife are less well studied. We investigate quantitatively the effect of seasonality on chytridiomycosis caused by Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans in European fire salamanders (Salamandra s...

Mitigation of infectious wildlife diseases is especially challenging where pathogens affect communities of multiple host species. Using a multiple-host compartmental model, we illustrate how to determine analytically whether and how intensively secondary hosts should be managed to prevent outbreaks in focal hosts, using the basic reproduction numbe...

Appendix S1 of article Canessa et al. (2018): Decision making for mitigating wildlife diseases: from theory to practice for an emerging fungal pathogen of amphibians. Journal of Applied Ecology doi:10.1111/1365-2664.13089.

Populations of weasels (Mustela nivalis) and stoats (Mustela erminea) have declined in large parts of Switzerland. Habitat destruction and fragmentation due to an increase of the human population and its demand for infrastructure is thought to be cause for the decline. The decline is exarcebated by the concurrent intensification in agriculture and...

1.When prevention of invasive species’ introductions fails, society faces the challenge to manage these invasive species in an effective and efficient way. The success of this depends on biological aspects and on cooperation between decision makers and scientists. Using the case of the round goby Neogobius melanostomus, one of Europe's worst invasi...

Emerging infectious diseases cause extirpation of wildlife populations. We use an epidemiological model to explore the effects of a recently emerged disease caused by the salamander-killing chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal) on host populations, and to evaluate which mitigation measures are most likely to succeed. As individual...

The ESM contains a description of the model that we used for human-mediated dispersal and supplementary figures which show the results of the sensitivity analysis.

Taxonomic resolution or uncertainty poses an important problem in biodiversity research. Assessment of biodiversity at the species level is most informative and preferred, but requires effort and expertise. Alternatively, researchers often bin species into higher taxa because they are unable to recognize them, or to save money and time. Here we ana...

One of the main recommendations of reintroduction biology for prospective projects is that they should be planned with local species knowledge and with species-specific quantitative modelling, for example, from population viability analysis (PVA). Here, we apply this approach to the planned reintroduction of the critically endangered Floreana mocki...

in lieu of an abstract: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41124030

Für weitere Details: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41124030