Showing papers by "DeeAnn M. Reeder published in 2021"

Preserve a Voucher Specimen! The Critical Need for Integrating Natural History Collections in Infectious Disease Studies.

Abstract: Despite being nearly 10 months into the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic, the definitive animal host for SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), the causal agent of COVID-19, remains unknown. Unfortunately, similar problems exist for other betacoronaviruses, and no vouchered specimens exist to corroborate host species identification for most of these pathogens. This most basic information is critical to the full understanding and mitigation of emerging zoonotic diseases. To overcome this hurdle, we recommend that host-pathogen researchers adopt vouchering practices and collaborate with natural history collections to permanently archive microbiological samples and host specimens. Vouchered specimens and associated samples provide both repeatability and extension to host-pathogen studies, and using them mobilizes a large workforce (i.e., biodiversity scientists) to assist in pandemic preparedness. We review several well-known examples that successfully integrate host-pathogen research with natural history collections (e.g., yellow fever, hantaviruses, helminths). However, vouchering remains an underutilized practice in such studies. Using an online survey, we assessed vouchering practices used by microbiologists (e.g., bacteriologists, parasitologists, virologists) in host-pathogen research. A much greater number of respondents permanently archive microbiological samples than archive host specimens, and less than half of respondents voucher host specimens from which microbiological samples were lethally collected. To foster collaborations between microbiologists and natural history collections, we provide recommendations for integrating vouchering techniques and archiving of microbiological samples into host-pathogen studies. This integrative approach exemplifies the premise underlying One Health initiatives, providing critical infrastructure for addressing related issues ranging from public health to global climate change and the biodiversity crisis.

Holistic understanding of contemporary ecosystems requires integration of data on domesticated, captive and cultivated organisms.

Abstract: Domestic and captive animals and cultivated plants should be recognised as integral components in contemporary ecosystems. They interact with wild organisms through such mechanisms as hybridization, predation, herbivory, competition and disease transmission and, in many cases, define ecosystem properties. Nevertheless, it is widespread practice for data on domestic, captive and cultivated organisms to be excluded from biodiversity repositories, such as natural history collections. Furthermore, there is a lack of integration of data collected about biodiversity in disciplines, such as agriculture, veterinary science, epidemiology and invasion science. Discipline-specific data are often intentionally excluded from integrative databases in order to maintain the "purity" of data on natural processes. Rather than being beneficial, we argue that this practise of data exclusivity greatly limits the utility of discipline-specific data for applications ranging from agricultural pest management to invasion biology, infectious disease prevention and community ecology. This problem can be resolved by data providers using standards to indicate whether the observed organism is of wild or domestic origin and by integrating their data with other biodiversity data (e.g. in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility). Doing so will enable efforts to integrate the full panorama of biodiversity knowledge across related disciplines to tackle pressing societal questions.

Using iNaturalist to monitor adherence to best practices in bat handling.

Abstract: The general guidance is, and has always been, that handling bats should be avoided, particularly by the general public, but capturing and handling bats is often unavoidable for bat researchers. While bat researchers are aware of the potential for zoonotic pathogen transmission to occur when handling bats, most notably Rabies virus, some do not wear any (or insufficient) personal protective equipment (PPE) to reduce risks of exposure. This lack of adherence to even minimal biosafety practices may jeopardize both the safety of the bat and the handler. Such concerns became more pressing with the COVID-19 pandemic, but also had been raised as a result of previous outbreaks of human infections linked to contact with animals. The largely unknown potential for handled bats to become infected by a bat researcher, something not previously considered by most field workers, is now widely known in the research community due to the efforts of the IUCN SSC Bat Specialist Group and the Global Union of Bat Diversity Networks (GBatNet). It is also worth noting that the negative framing of bats during the pandemic may have serious consequences for bat conservation (Lopez-Baucells et al. 2017) and a refocusing of the conversation on the deficiencies of human interactions with bats would be a preferable direction. After all, bats are an important component of global ecosystems and provide many ecosystem services to humans (Kunz et al. 2011). Several bat-specific conservation groups have developed guidelines on how to safely handle bats to prevent anthropozoonotic transmission, including the IUCN SSC Bat Specialist Group (Nunez et al. 2020), the Bat Conservation Trust (Anonymous 2020), the Latin American and Caribbean Network for the Conservation of Bats (Suarez-Alvarez and Lopez-Berrizbeitia 2020) and Worksafe Queensland (Paterson 2016). These guidelines largely focus on the increased use of PPE, such as leather or nitrile/latex gloves, respirator masks, long sleeves and long trousers and protective eyewear or face shield, depending on the situation. These build on earlier PPE protocols deployed by some research groups to mitigate the risk of exposure to potential bat pathogens. Given the recent developments, we were interested to know if the use of PPE, in particular wearing gloves, has improved and whether we could detect a change by screening pictures of bats uploaded to iNaturalist. Clearly, it is not possible to evaluate the full adherance to bat handling guidlines, but we believe that use of gloves is a good indicator that best practices are being followed. iNaturalist is a mobile phone app for recording occurrences of wildlife and a social network for amateur and professional naturalists alike. It has about 100,000 to 300,000 active users and tens of thousands of observations of wildlife are recorded each day. On iNaturalist, most observations are evidenced by a picture of the organism. This allows the species to be identified, if possible, or verified by users who have the expertise, but also provides the context of the photograph as well. That context can show what the organism is doing, what developmental stage it is, what the habitat is or how it was photographed, such as whether a person is holding the organism. In our case, we wanted to verify whether people who were handling bats were wearing gloves and to determine whether there has recently been a change in behaviour (i.e. frequency of bat handlers wearing gloves).