Permafrost dynamics and the risk of anthrax transmission: a modelling study
A recent outbreak of anthrax disease, severely affecting reindeer herds in Siberia, has been reportedly associated to the presence of infected carcasses or spores released from the active layer over permafrost, which is thawing and thickening at increasing rates, thus underlying the re-emerging natu...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7541526 2023-05-15T14:55:48+02:00 Permafrost dynamics and the risk of anthrax transmission: a modelling study Stella, Elisa Mari, Lorenzo Gabrieli, Jacopo Barbante, Carlo Bertuzzo, Enrico 2020-10-07 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7541526/ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-72440-6 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7541526/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-72440-6 © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. CC-BY Sci Rep Article Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-72440-6 2020-10-11T00:38:56Z A recent outbreak of anthrax disease, severely affecting reindeer herds in Siberia, has been reportedly associated to the presence of infected carcasses or spores released from the active layer over permafrost, which is thawing and thickening at increasing rates, thus underlying the re-emerging nature of this pathogen in the Arctic region because of warming temperatures. Anthrax is a global zoonotic and epizootic disease, with a high case-fatality ratio in infected animals. Its transmission is mediated by environmental contamination through highly resistant spores which can persist in the soil for several decades. Here we develop and analyze a new epidemiological model for anthrax transmission that is specifically tailored to the Arctic environmental conditions. The model describes transmission dynamics including also herding practices (e.g. seasonal grazing) and the role of the active layer over permafrost acting as a long-term storage of spores that could be viable for disease transmission during thawing periods. Model dynamics are investigated through linear stability analysis, Floquet theory for periodically forced systems, and a series of simulations with realistic forcings. Results show how the temporal variability of grazing and active layer thawing may influence the dynamics of anthrax disease and, specifically, favor sustained pathogen transmission. Particularly warm years, favoring deep active layers, are shown to be associated with an increase risk of anthrax outbreaks, and may also foster infections in the following years. Our results enable preliminary insights into measures (e.g. changes in herding practice) that may be adopted to decrease the risk of infection and lay the basis to possibly establish optimal procedures for preventing transmission; furthermore, they elicit the need of further investigations and observation campaigns focused on anthrax dynamics in the Arctic environment. Text Arctic permafrost Siberia PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Scientific Reports 10 1 |
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Article Stella, Elisa Mari, Lorenzo Gabrieli, Jacopo Barbante, Carlo Bertuzzo, Enrico Permafrost dynamics and the risk of anthrax transmission: a modelling study |
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Article |
description |
A recent outbreak of anthrax disease, severely affecting reindeer herds in Siberia, has been reportedly associated to the presence of infected carcasses or spores released from the active layer over permafrost, which is thawing and thickening at increasing rates, thus underlying the re-emerging nature of this pathogen in the Arctic region because of warming temperatures. Anthrax is a global zoonotic and epizootic disease, with a high case-fatality ratio in infected animals. Its transmission is mediated by environmental contamination through highly resistant spores which can persist in the soil for several decades. Here we develop and analyze a new epidemiological model for anthrax transmission that is specifically tailored to the Arctic environmental conditions. The model describes transmission dynamics including also herding practices (e.g. seasonal grazing) and the role of the active layer over permafrost acting as a long-term storage of spores that could be viable for disease transmission during thawing periods. Model dynamics are investigated through linear stability analysis, Floquet theory for periodically forced systems, and a series of simulations with realistic forcings. Results show how the temporal variability of grazing and active layer thawing may influence the dynamics of anthrax disease and, specifically, favor sustained pathogen transmission. Particularly warm years, favoring deep active layers, are shown to be associated with an increase risk of anthrax outbreaks, and may also foster infections in the following years. Our results enable preliminary insights into measures (e.g. changes in herding practice) that may be adopted to decrease the risk of infection and lay the basis to possibly establish optimal procedures for preventing transmission; furthermore, they elicit the need of further investigations and observation campaigns focused on anthrax dynamics in the Arctic environment. |
format |
Text |
author |
Stella, Elisa Mari, Lorenzo Gabrieli, Jacopo Barbante, Carlo Bertuzzo, Enrico |
author_facet |
Stella, Elisa Mari, Lorenzo Gabrieli, Jacopo Barbante, Carlo Bertuzzo, Enrico |
author_sort |
Stella, Elisa |
title |
Permafrost dynamics and the risk of anthrax transmission: a modelling study |
title_short |
Permafrost dynamics and the risk of anthrax transmission: a modelling study |
title_full |
Permafrost dynamics and the risk of anthrax transmission: a modelling study |
title_fullStr |
Permafrost dynamics and the risk of anthrax transmission: a modelling study |
title_full_unstemmed |
Permafrost dynamics and the risk of anthrax transmission: a modelling study |
title_sort |
permafrost dynamics and the risk of anthrax transmission: a modelling study |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7541526/ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-72440-6 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic permafrost Siberia |
genre_facet |
Arctic permafrost Siberia |
op_source |
Sci Rep |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7541526/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-72440-6 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-72440-6 |
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Scientific Reports |
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10 |
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1 |
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