Abundance of White-fronted Parrots and diet of an urban parrot assemblage(Aves:Psittaciformes)in a green Neotropical city

Urban ecosystems are evolutionarily recent novel environments acting as biodiversity filters.Psittacidae birds are considered successful urban adapters mainly d...     

Calf health from birth to weaning. III. housing and management of calf pneumonia

Calfhood diseases have a major impact on the economic viability of cattle operations. A three part review series has been developed focusing on calf health from birth to weaning. In this paper, the last of the three part series, we review disease prevention and management with particular reference to pneumonia, focusing primarily on the pre-weaned calf. Pneumonia in recently weaned suckler calves is also considered, where the key risk factors are related to the time of weaning. Weaning of the suckler calf is often combined with additional stressors including a change in nutrition, environmental change, transport and painful husbandry procedures (castration, dehorning). The reduction of the cumulative effects of these multiple stressors around the time of weaning together with vaccination programmes (preconditioning) can reduce subsequent morbidity and mortality in the feedlot. In most studies, calves housed individually and calves housed outdoors with shelter, are associated with decreased risk of disease. Even though it poses greater management challenges, successful group housing of calves is possible. Special emphasis should be given to equal age groups and to keeping groups stable once they are formed. The management of pneumonia in calves is reliant on a sound understanding of aetiology, relevant risk factors, and of effective approaches to diagnosis and treatment. Early signs of pneumonia include increased respiratory rate and fever, followed by depression. The single most important factor determining the success of therapy in calves with pneumonia is early onset of treatment, and subsequent adequate duration of treatment. The efficacy and economical viability of vaccination against respiratory disease in calves remains unclear.     

Microarray-based detection of viruses causing vesicular or vesicular-like lesions in livestock animals

Definitive diagnosis of vesicular or vesicular-like lesions in livestock animals presents challenges both for veterinary clinicians and diagnostic laboratories. It is often impossible to diagnose the causative disease agent on a clinical basis alone and difficult to collect ample vesicular epithelium samples. Due to restrictions of time and sample size, once laboratory tests have ruled out foot-and-mouth disease, vesicular stomatitis and swine vesicular disease a definitive diagnosis may remain elusive. With the ability to test a small quantity of sample for a large number of pathogens simultaneously, DNA microarrays represent a potential solution to this problem. This study describes the application of a long oligonucleotide microarray assay to the identification of viruses known to cause vesicular or vesicular-like lesions in livestock animals. Eighteen virus isolates from cell culture were successfully identified to genus level, including representatives of each foot-and-mouth disease virus serotype, two species of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), swine vesicular disease virus, vesicular exanthema of swine virus (VESV), bovine herpesvirus 1, orf virus, pseudocowpox virus, bluetongue virus serotype 1 and bovine viral diarrhoea virus 1. VSV and VESV were also identified in vesicular epithelium samples, with varying levels of sensitivity. The results indicate that with further development this microarray assay could be a valuable tool for the diagnosis of vesicular and vesicular-like diseases.     

Comparison of the environmental survival characteristics of Salmonella Dublin and Salmonella Typhimurium

To examine possible correlations in bovine Salmonella isolates between environmental survival and serovar-associated epidemiological patterns, bovine field isolates of Salmonella serovars Typhimurium and Dublin (two each) were inoculated into bovine faeces slurry and tested monthly by culture for survival during a six-month period of storage at a variable ambient temperature in a disused animal transporter. Low moisture conditions, where the slurry was dried onto wooden dowels, increased detectable survival of a low-level inoculum by up to five months, compared with wet slurry. A more modest increase of survival time was seen with storage of wet slurry under refrigeration at 4°C. Under both dry and wet conditions, the concentration of culturable Salmonella Typhimurium declined at a slower rate than did that of Salmonella Dublin. Salmonella that was naturally contaminating bovine faeces from farms with Salmonella Typhimurium did not show superior survival times compared with Salmonella Typhimurium that had been artificially inoculated into samples. The differing survival characteristics of the two serovars that was observed in environmental faeces may complement their different modes of infection in cattle. Salmonella Dublin, being a bovine host-adapted strain that establishes chronic infection in some animals, may have less need to survive for a prolonged period outside of its host than does Salmonella Typhimurium.     

Evidence of paratuberculosis in Ohio's white-tailed deer, as determined by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay

An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed and used to detect antibodies to Mycobacterium paratuberculosis in serum samples obtained in December of 1983 from 954 hunter-killed white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in 13 Ohio counties. Positive or negative status was determined by calculating a signal-to-noise ratio, a ratio between the optical density of the test serum and negative reference sera; a ratio of greater than or equal to 3.0 was considered positive. Twenty-four samples (2.5%) were found to be assay positive, using this method. A statistically significant difference among age groups was found, with those less than or equal to 6 months of age having a lower proportion of positives. Differences by sex were not observed. To determine the validity of the ELISA in deer, serum samples from 46 fallow (Dama dama) and axis deer (Axis axis) harvested from a known infected population were tested by ELISA and agar-gel immunodiffusion. The agar-gel immunodiffusion test showed evidence of exposure of the deer to M paratuberculosis or a related antigen. The ELISA closely approximated the prevalence of paratuberculosis infection as previously determined by fecal culture in this population. As a result of these tests, it was concluded that free-ranging Ohio deer have been infected with M paratuberculosis or exposed to a closely related antigen.