U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center Climate Change and Wildlife Health: Direct and Indirect Effects

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: Pacific; Rasmussen; caribou
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.664.2947; http://www.pinellas.wateratlas.usf.edu/upload/documents/fs2010-3017.pdf

Printed on recycled paper Climate change effects must be distinguished from other human activities that threaten human and animal health, such as habitat destruction and urbanization, the introduction of exotic and invasive species, and pollution. Clearly, these human activities directly affect ecosystem health and thereby indirectly affect human and animal health as well. Climate change must also be viewed within the context of other physical and climate cycles, such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (El Niño) (Rasmussen and Carpenter, 1982) and cycles in solar radiation (Carslaw and others, 2002) that have profound effects on the Earth’s climate and human, domestic animal, and wildlife health. Still, convincing evidence exists for climate change effects on wildlife disease in several areas, four of which are addressed here: geographic range and distribution of wildlife diseases, plant and animal phenology (Walther and others, 2002), wildlife host-pathogen interactions, and disease patterns in wildlife. Other factors of concern, such as ecosystem composition and pathogen virulence, are addressed in climate change literature. Geographic Range and Distribution of Wildlife Diseases In the Northern Hemisphere global warming has likely played a role in northern geographic shifts of disease vectors and parasitic diseases that have complex life cycles. For example, the geographic range of the lung parasite, Parelaphostrongylus odocoilei, of caribou has shifted northward since 1995 from the Pacific Coastal Range of the United States and British Columbia