Emerging diseases

Many diseases of wild and farmed animals are emerging due to climate change, habitat degradation and associated biotic responses.

The response of animals to these changes may alter parasite distributions and promote disease outbreaks in new regions.

Our research encompasses parasite diversity, parasite interactions with hosts, disease vectors and the environmental drivers of disease development and outbreak.

Diseases caused by myxozoans

Much of our work focuses on myxozoans - highly simplified microscopic endoparasites (living inside hosts) with complex life cycles involving vertebrate and invertebrate hosts.

Amazingly, myxozoans are related to jellyfish.

We focus on myxozoans exploiting farmed and wild fish to address the following topics:

• Strains of the myxozoan causing devastating disease in salmon and trout.
• Myxozoan co-infections.
• Myxozoan diversity and potential for disease emergence in fish.
• Strategies used to exploit invertebrate and vertebrate hosts.

Parasites and pathogens linked with waterfowl

Migratory birds have the capacity to spread disease over broad spatial scales. Changes in migratory behaviour may thus impact disease distributions.

We are using non-invasive molecular approaches to detect the DNA of parasites and pathogens associated with waterfowl by analysing bird poo.

Parasites and pathogens of endangered amphibians

Amphibian populations are endangered globally with populations threatened by habitat loss, changing climate, pollution and invasive taxa.

Amphibian health may also be compromised by changing compositions of associated parasites and pathogens (their ‘pathobiomes’).

Investigating how pathobiomes have changed over time may reveal threats and discovery of novel affiliated taxa that could be prone to extinction as their host populations decline.

We are using next generation sequencing technologies to characterise pathobiome changes in present-day and historical material in museum collections from tropical hotspots of frog diversity.