A Nordic Centre of Excellence focusing on the dynamic effects of climatic variation on ecological an

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A Nordic Centre of Excellence focusing on the
dynamic effects of climatic variation on
ecological and epidemiological systems
EcoClim-NCoE (within CEES)

•         University of Oslo the chairing unit
  of the NCoE (prof. Nils Chr. Stenseth
  n.c.stenseth_at_bio.uio.no)
•         University of Helsinki
•         University of Lund
•         and a broad spectrum of international
  collaborators
• at top international universities

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CEES Center for evolutionary and ecological
synthesis
A Center of Excellence based at the Faculty of
Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of
Oslo
Founding Centre-leader and contact person
Professor Nils Chr. Stenseth (n.c.stenseth_at_bio.ui
o.no)
A multi-disciplinary group whose work is based on
the latest developments in molecular genetics and
statistical/computer-based methods
Statistics
Ecology
Spatial and temporal changes in populations, as
well as evolution (speciation and extinction)
Informatics
Evolutionary biology
Mathematics
Genetics
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CEES core group
Centre leader Prof. Nils Chr. Stenseth (Dept. of
Biology, Univ. of Oslo Institute of Marine
Research, Bergen) At Dept. of Biology, Univ. of
Oslo Prof. Dag O. Hessen Prof. Glenn-Peter
Sætre Prof. Kjetill S. Jakobsen Prof.
Asbjørn Vøllestad Prof. Atle Mysterud At Dept.
of Economy, Univ. of Oslo Prof. Tore
Schweder At Dept of Mathematics, Univ of
Oslo Prof. Geir Storvik At Dept of Informatics,
Univ of Oslo Prof. Ole Christian Lingjærde At
Institute of Marine Research Dr. Geir Ottersen
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Example of CEES publications

• Davis, S.A., Begon, M., De Bruyn, L., Ageyev,
  V.S., Klassovskiy, N., Pole, S.B., Viljugrein,
  H., Stenseth, N.C. Leirs, H. 2004. Predictive
  thresholds for plague in Kazakhstan. Science 304,
  736-738.
• Frigessi, A., Holden, M., Marshall, E.C.,
  Viljugrein, H., Stenseth, N.C., Holden, L.,
  Ageyev, V.S. Klassovskiy, N.L. 2005. Bayesian
  population dynamics of interacting species great
  gerbils and fleas in Kazakhstan. Biometrics 61,
  231-239.
• Samia, N.I., Chan, K.-S. Stenseth, N.C. 2006. A
  generalized threshold regression model for
  analyzing non-norfmal nonlinear time series
  plague in Kazakhstan as an illustration.
  Biometrika (in press).
• Stenseth N.C., Samia N.I., Viljugrein H., Kausrud
  K., Begon M., DavisS., Leirs H., Dubyandkiy V.M.,
  Esper J., Ageyev V.S., Klassovskiy N.L., Pole
  S.B. and Chan K-S. Plague Dynamics are driven by
  Climate Variation. Science (in review).

• Stenseth, N.C., Leirs, H., Skonhoft, A., Davis,
  S.A., Pech, R.P., Andreassen, H.P., Singleton,
  G.R., Lima, M., Machangu, R.M., Makundi, R.H.,
  Zhang, Z., Brown, P.B., Shi, D. Wan Xinrong.
  2003. Mice, Rats and People the bio-economics of
  agricultural rodent pests. Frontiers in Ecology
  and the Environment 1,367-375.
• Davis, S.A., Leirs, L., Pech, R.R., Zhang, Z.
  Stenseth, N.C. 2004. On the economic benefit of
  predicting rodent outbreaks in agricultural
  systems. Crop Protection 23, 305-314.
• Skonhoft, A., Leirs, H. Andreassen, H.P.,
  Mulungu, L.S.A. Stenseth, N.C. 2006. The
  Bioeconomics of controlling an African rodent
  pest species. Environmental and Developmental
  Economics (in press).
• Leirs, H., Stenseth, N.C., Nichols, J.D., Hines,
  J.E., Verhagen, R. Verheyen, W. 1997.
  Stochastic seasonality and non-linear
  density-dependent factors regulate population
  size in an African rodent. Nature 389, 176-180.

• Stige, L.C., Stave, J., Chan, K.-S., Ciannelli,
  L., Pettorelli, N., Glantz, M., Herren, H.R.
  Stenseth, N.C. 2006. The effect of climate
  variation on agro-pastoral production in Africa.
  Proceedings of National Academy of Science,
  Washington 103, 3049-3053.

• Pettorelli, N., Vik, J.O., Mysterud, A.,
  Gaillard, J.-M-, Tucker, C.J. Stenseth, N.C.
  2005. Using the satellite-derived NDVI to assess
  ecological responses to environmental change.
  Trends in Ecology and Evolution 20, 503-510.

• Stenseth et al. 2002. Ecological effects of
  climate fluctuations. Science 297, 1292-1296.

• Stenseth et al. 2003. Seasonality, density
  dependence, and population cycles in Hokkaido
  voles. Proceedings of National Academy of
  Science, Washington 100 11478-11483.
• Rueness, E.K., Stenseth, N.C. et al. 2003.
  Ecological and genetic spatial structuring in the
  Canadian lynx. Nature 425 69-72.

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The Centre's research agenda I

• Overall objective of the NCoE
• understand the ecological dynamic effects of
  climate fluctuations and change by analysing
  long-term data and theoretical models found to be
  consistent with available data.

Biologists/climato-logists System knowledge

• Basic theoryclimate data
• Initial model development
• Model estimation and checking
• Application (e.g., management)

Statisticians Method knowledge
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Access to data I

• Examples of available data sets
• Climatic data
• Indices for the North Atlantic Oscillation
  (NAO),
• El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO),
• and other large-scale climatic patterns
• Wildlife data from Finland
• long-term records of
• (1) forest grouse species in the 12 Finnish
  provinces since 1964.
• (2) Wildlife Triangle Censuses (since 1989) all
  over Finland
• (3) wildlife winter track censuses in Finland in
  Russian Carelia.
• Long-term data on small rodents in Finland
• 1) monitoring of rodent fluctuation over Finland
  (20-30 years)
• 2) intensive long-term studies, observational
  and experimental
• Scottish Red Grouse data
• Annually for more than a century 352
  independently managed areas

Ecology Statistical modelling
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Access to data II
Ecology Statistical modelling

• The Canadian Hudson Bay data
• The Scottish Soay sheep and Norwegian Red deer
  data
• Hirta in the St Kilda archipelago since the
  1950s
• Harvest data from western Norway on Red deer
• The Barents Sea data
• Data from the annual international 0-group
  surveys (1965-)
• survey data for capelin and herring (1972-) and
  cod (1981-).
• long time-series of sea temperature measurements
  (going back to the 1920s)
• The Flødevigen long-term data set
• Beach seine data, 34 fish species each fall
  since 1919
• Temperature data from the start
• From 1957 wind data
• The NCEAS data base
• Dynamics of Large Mammalian Herbivores in
  Changing Environments at the National Center for
  Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), Univ.
  California (Santa Barbara) database.

Genetics
Mathematics
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Human cases of plagueReporting countries
2002-2005
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- extend system to rest of Great gerbil focus -
extend system to other types of focus?
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STEPICA The plague of Central Asia - an
epidemiological study focusing on space-time
dynamics(EU-contract ICA2-CT2000-10048)
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STEPICA developed out of the EU-based ISTC-K159
project (coordinated from Copenhagen)Monitoring
of quantitative and qualitative parameters of
especially dangerous infections based on natural
plague foci in the Republic of Kazakhstan
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• STEPICA has resulted in several publications in
  very good journals.
• STEPICA has provided a basis for further
  collaborative work on the plague system

• The Welcome Trust project (Liverpool and
  Almaty) The detailed dynamics of plague in its
  reservoir host in Kazakhstan

The INTAS project Predicting plague outbreaks
in Central Asia using data from natural systems
to refine and test models
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Participating institutions
Finnish Forest Research Institute
Kazakh Anti-Plague Research Institute Taldykorgan
Plague Control Station Institute of Informatics
and Control Problems
CEES, University of Oslo
Kyrgyz Plague Control Station
Danish Pest Infestation Laboratory
University of Liverpool
Uzbek Plague Control Station
Institut Pasteur
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Annual report on STEPICA The plague of Central
Asia - an epidemiological study focusing on
space-time dynamics (CEC-Contract
ICA2-CT2000-10048 Report for the 2004-2005 and
Final report) The structure of the report First
we provide a report on the overall work including
summaries of a new Science paper integrating much
of the work carried out within the STEPICA
project, information the closing conference in
November 2005 and information on a user-friendly
Expert System to be used in Central Asia (the
latter essentially being a TIP). Followed by the
concluding project report, is the report for the
2004/5 structured follows After an executive
summary, we provide a short summary of work
during the year, followed by brief annual reports
from individual partners within which summaries
of ongoing work are given. Some of the key new
papers from the project is included as part of
this report others has been provided in earlier
annual reports. The work within STEPICA is
currently attempted continued as an INTAS
project which we have gone to the second stage of
evaluation). Efforts are furthermore made obtain
private funding (from oil companies) to continue
some of this work. The coordinator of STEPICA,
Professor Stenseth, will for this purpose visit
Astana in Kazakhstan on March 27-29, 2006.
Professor Stenseth will at these meetings
be accompanied by Dr. Bakyt B Atshabar, the
director of Kazakh Scientific Centre
for Quarantine and Zoonotic Diseases, Almaty.
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The plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis
current ecology and epidemiology
evolution of the bacterium
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BIRTH PLACE evolutionary
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The plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis
What control the current ecology and
epidemiology of the plague?
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analyse time series?
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Do abundance thresholds operate for plague in
great gerbil populations?

• If yes then
• Prediction allows focused surveillance and
  control.
• Rodent control may become a viable alternative to
  monitoring plague.

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• The historic plagues

• Did Y. pestis cause the historic plagues?

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Climate and ecology
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Climate seems to have an effect (both in North
America and in Central Asia)
warmer and wetter climate results in higher
prevalence
and higher probabilities of spreading to humans
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Plague and climate in Central Asia
warmer and wetter
more rodents
even higher prevalence
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- improve predictions beyond the threshold -
predict prevalence rather than presence/absence
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Temperature in Central Asia
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PLAGUE IN KAZAKHSTAN (1899-1999)
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Temperature in Central Asia
1949
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BIRTH PLACE epidemiologicaly, as well
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A PLAGUE PREDICTION EXPERT SYSTEM?
Herwig Leirs STEPICA colleagues Universiteit
Antwerpen, Belgium Danish Pest Infestation
Laboratory, Denmark
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• Plague monitoring and intervention system
• successful
• labour intensive
• expensive
• sustainable?

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Focused and cheap surveillance

• 18 months in advance, update 12 months later
• based only on estimates of occupancy
• correctly describes 52 of the 66 years
• all of the incorrect years are when plague was
  expected but not found (no epizootics are
  missed)

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currently being evaluated at Taldykorgan PCS
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1) Joint work within the STEPIC EU-program with
Kazakh Scientific Centre for Quarantine and
Zoonotic Diseases has provided an ideal platform
for further work
2) Welcome Trust in UK supports this work, as
does the Norwegian Research Council and the
University of Oslo
3) Further analyses of more of the historic Atlas
data on the plague system will clearly be very
rewarding
4) as will similar analysis of other long-term
data not the least in connection with climate
change
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5) Such further work should combine analyses of
the historic archived data with collection of new
data - collection of those new data itself
guided by the analysis of the archived data
6) Studies on the evolution of differential
strain virulence

• 7) A problem in Kazakhstan
• Central Asia (China)
• as well as the entire world

8) We are hoping and expecting further EU funding
(INTAS) second stage evaluation
9) Additional private funding would certainly be
very useful and would amount to much added
value, given the current viable international
network
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8) We are hoping and expecting further EU funding
(INTAS) second stage evaluation
9) Additional private funding would certainly be
very useful and would amount to much added
value, given the current viable international
network
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