We review the literature to distinguish reports of vertebrate wildlife disease emergence with sufficient evidence, enabling a robust assessment of emergence drivers. For potentially emerging agents that cannot be confirmed, sufficient data on prior absence (or a prior difference in disease dynamics) are frequently lacking. Improved surveillance, particularly for neglected host taxa, geographical regions and infectious agents, would enable more effective management should emergence occur. Exposure to domestic sources of infection and human-assisted exposure to wild sources were identified as the two main drivers of emergence across host taxa; the domestic source was primary for fish while the wild source was primary for other taxa. There was generally insufficient evidence for major roles of other hypothesized drivers of emergence.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	emerging infectious disease, wildlife
Research Division:	Biological Sciences
Research Group:	Evolutionary biology
Research Field:	Host-parasite interactions
Objective Division:	Health
Objective Group:	Public health (excl. specific population health)
Objective Field:	Disease distribution and transmission (incl. surveillance and response)
UTAS Author:	Carver, S (Associate Professor Scott Carver)
UTAS Author:	Jones, ME (Professor Menna Jones)
ID Code:	100176
Year Published:	2015
Web of Science® Times Cited:	181
Deposited By:	Zoology
Deposited On:	2015-05-06
Last Modified:	2017-11-01
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