On April 17 2020 by Simon Dellicour
Our new study on the dispersal dynamics and ecological drivers of the African swine fever outbreak in Belgium has been accepted for publication in Journal of Applied Ecology. In this study, we present and apply a novel analytical framework that uses occurrence data to investigate the impact of environmental factors on the wavefront progression of epidemics and biological invasions.
African swine fever is a devastating disease of domestic pigs and wild boars caused by African swine fever virus (ASFV). Read more...
On February 19 2020 by Marius Gilbert
Egypt, Algeria and Republic of South Africa are the African countries most at risk for coronavirus COVID-19 importation in the continent, due to high air traffic with the contaminated Chinese provinces.
But these countries are also among the best equipped on the continent to quickly detect and deal with new cases. In other African countries, the risk of importation is lower, but health organization deficiencies raise concerns about rapid spread. Read more...
On November 21 2019 by Simon Dellicour
Our new article presenting a method to incorporate heterogeneous sampling probabilities in continuous phylogeographic inference has been accepted for publication in Bioinformatics. In this study, we present how to take advantage of external data (such as outbreak locations) to inform priors of sampling coordinates. We then apply this new method to analyse the circulation of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 clades in the Mekong region.
The potentially low precision associated with the geographic origin of sampled sequences represents an important limitation for spatially-explicit (i. Read more...
On September 20 2019 by Marius Gilbert
The paper aimed to produce a first global overview of antimicrobial resistance in low and middle-income countries, based on the compilation of thousands of point-prevalence surveys. The paper, published in Science describes temporal trends in the levels of resistance in farm animals, and provides a first global map of where antimicrobial resistance is the highest.
The paper is lead by Thomas Van Boeckel, a former member of the lab, who now leads the Health Geography and Policy Group at ETH Zurich, and was carried out in collaboration with researchers from Princeton university and CDDEP. Read more...
On September 01 2019 by Simon Dellicour
Our new article on landscape phylogeography has been accepted for publication in Molecular Ecology. In this study, we applied different post-hoc landscape phylogeographic approaches to analyse a new and comprehensive data set of viral genomes to elucidate the dispersal history and dynamics of rabies virus (RABV) in Iran.
Recent years have seen the extensive use of phylogeographic approaches to unveil the dispersal history of virus epidemics. Spatially-explicit reconstructions of viral spread represent valuable sources of lineage movement data that can be exploited to investigate the impact of underlying environmental layers on the dispersal of pathogens. Read more...
On March 01 2019 by Marius Gilbert
Since a few years, we have been involved in the development of method to measure the rate of spread of biolgical invasions. More specifically, we published a new method to quantify the local velocity of the front wave of an invasion, and applied this method to measure the rate of spread of several bluetongue epidemics.
Recently, the sampe method was applied to describe the invasion by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus in US and in Europe in a large collaborative study lead by Moritz Kraemer, at the university of Oxford. Read more...
On March 01 2019 by Simon Dellicour
Our article titled “Landscape genetic analyses of Cervus elaphus and Sus scrofa: comparative study and analytical developments” has recently been published in Heredity. In this study, we describe and use a landscape genetic workflow to compare spatial patterns of genetic variability and the impact of environmental factors on genetic differentiation.
Red deer and wild boar are two major game species whose populations are managed and live in areas impacted by human activities. Read more...
On October 28 2018 by Marius Gilbert
In collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and other collaborators, we are publishing this week in Nature Scientific Data the result of several years of research to improve global data on the distribution of livestock (cattle, buffaloes, horses, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens and ducks).
These new data sets provide estimates of the density (individuals / km2) of these species at a spatial resolution of 5 minutes of arc (approximately 10 km at the equator) over the globe. Read more...
On September 05 2018 by Marius Gilbert
A 2-year post-doc position starting immediately is available to work on global spatial and temporal distribution models of livestock. Description The global livestock sector faces major challenges in terms of the sustainability of its development due to the considerable externalities that livestock production has on society, health and the environment. High-resolution maps of livestock are essential tools to assess the sustainability of livestock production systems. Maps allow, for example, the estimation of potential impacts of various hazards that have strong spatial dimensions such as the release of pollutants. Read more...
On February 12 2018 by Marius Gilbert
A 2-year post-doc position is opened to work on spatial epidemics and phylogeographic models applied to Bluetongue. Description Several factors can contribute to the spread of animal diseases their relative effect can be difficult to disentangle. In this project, we aim to compare spatial epidemic models and spatial phylogeographic models in their capacity to quantify the effect of different factors on patterns of spread, using past bluetongue epidemics as study system. Read more...