Skip to content
Ecological Intelligence

Ecological evidence.
Independent perspective.
Explore Wild Lands ↗

Ecological Intelligence / Subject

One Health

Connections among wildlife, people, domestic animals and environmental health.

Peer-reviewed Europe

Genome sequencing confirmed shrew-associated Regana virus in archived Swiss specimens

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Canton Graubünden, Switzerland
System
Shrew virome; archive-enabled surveillance

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers analyzed eight archived shrews captured in Graubünden, Switzerland in 2005–06. Regana virus RNA was found in three bicoloured shrews from two sites, and near-complete or complete genome segments were assembled from liver tissues.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Museum and archived wildlife samples can change the known distribution of a virus years after collection; detection is not a spillover event.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Very small historical sample; no viral isolation, transmission route, disease in shrews, or human pathogenicity established.

SOURCE

Park et al. · Tropical Medicine and Health (3 Nov 2026)
View original evidence ↗

Three historical shrew specimens yielded orthonairovirus sequences, not evidence of human infection.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Latin America & Caribbean

Brazilian bat testing found no confirmed arbovirus infections in the sampled cohort

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Human–bat interfaces, Midwest Brazil
System
Bats; arbovirus surveillance; One Health

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Investigators screened tissues from 189 free-living bats sampled at human–animal interfaces in Midwest Brazil in 2017–18. All tested tissues were negative by RT-qPCR for six arboviruses; neutralization testing did not establish Oropouche or Mayaro seropositivity, although weaker Mayaro plaque reductions warrant investigation.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Wildlife disease intelligence should preserve negative findings and avoid converting incomplete serological signals into transmission claims.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Limited species, region, years and sample sizes. No positive results here does not rule out circulation elsewhere or at other times.

SOURCE

Garrido et al. · EcoHealth (2 Nov 2026)
View original evidence ↗

A surveillance null result draws a line between suggestive antibody reactions and proven infection.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Europe

In a soil resistance trial, seasonality outweighed experimental warming

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Agricultural potato field experiment, Basque Country, Spain
System
Agricultural soils; environmental antimicrobial resistance

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A field study in agricultural potato soils combined soil warming and selected herbicide, fungicide and insecticide treatments and characterized resistance genes via targeted metagenomics. Warming and biocide treatments were not leading correlates of resistance-gene abundance changes; growing-season dynamics dominated, possibly reflecting initial manure application.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Environmental antimicrobial resistance cannot be assessed with one sampling date and a presumed single driver. Temporal baselines can change the interpretation of climate or agricultural interventions.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Specific site, season and tested substances; absence of a detectable effect in this experiment is not evidence that warming or biocides never affect soil resistomes. Manure explanation is plausible, not isolated experimentally.

SOURCE

Ruiz-Torrubia et al. · npj Antimicrobials and Resistance (3 Nov 2026)
View original evidence ↗

A Spanish field experiment found time within the growing season a stronger resistance-gene signal than tested warming or crop biocides.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Europe

Urban greenery has a chemical structure beyond canopy cover

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Five urban greenspaces, Oxford, England, UK
System
Urban vegetation layers and airborne terpene compounds

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Air sampling and vegetation surveys across five parks showed plant richness and plant volume below 1.5 m associated with higher measured terpenes and terpenoids, while tree number and canopy cover were weaker predictors.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Urban designers can look below the canopy and measure the characteristics people encounter at breathing height.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Five independent sites; these exploratory associations neither prove human health benefits nor mean all plant emissions improve air quality.

SOURCE

npj Clean Air — Kay et al. (1 Nov 2026)
View original evidence ↗

Five Oxford sites linked plant diversity and low vegetation to airborne natural scent compounds.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Asia

Stingless-bee practices in South India span medicine, culture and management

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
13 districts, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Goa, India
System
Stingless bee ethnobiology, pollination and community knowledge

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Seventy-nine interviews across 15 ethnic communities produced 44 reported uses of stingless bees and their products. Traditions ranged from non-destructive coconut, bamboo and mud hives to destructive extraction; respondents also described an untested pollen remedy for bee disease.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Cultural practices can preserve valuable management observations and species relationships that are rarely represented in biodiversity inventories.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Snowball sampling is not representative; veterinary and medicinal reports are not trials. Peer-reviewed accepted article may receive final formatting changes.

SOURCE

Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine — Charanakumar et al. (30 Oct 2026)
View original evidence ↗

A survey of 15 communities documented a knowledge system more diverse than conventional hive-production measures.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Europe

Budapest's ponds point to local ecology more than urban density

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
93 garden and other urban ponds, Budapest, Hungary
System
Urban pond communities, mosquitoes and fish

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Using net surveys and eDNA, researchers sampled 40 garden and 53 other ponds. Only two had invasive Aedes koreicus. Fish presence correlated negatively with mosquito occurrence and abundance; urbanization was not a major explanatory variable.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Pond design and food-web composition can matter more than the city's average built-cover measure.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Observational fish association is not a blanket recommendation to stock urban ponds; introduced fish can harm amphibians and invertebrates. Detection does not imply disease transmission.

SOURCE

Urban Ecosystems — Tornero et al. (30 Oct 2026)
View original evidence ↗

Mosquito abundance in 93 ponds was more strongly associated with fish presence than surrounding urbanization.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Global

A bat virome's geography tells more than its menu

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
1,627 libraries, 78 bat species, 13 countries
System
Wildlife viromes, host phylogeny and One Health

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A synthesis identified 309,546 viral operational taxonomic units, 82.74% unclassified. Feeding guild was associated with some community differences, but phylogeny and sampling locality explained substantially more variation; shared diet was a weaker predictor of viral sharing.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Surveillance design needs place, host history and consistent sampling, not only an animal's feeding category.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Sequence detection does not demonstrate viable infection, spillover or disease; virome-library coverage is uneven and much of the taxonomy remains unresolved.

SOURCE

Nature Communications — Huang et al. (30 Oct 2026)
View original evidence ↗

In global RNA-virus libraries, bat ancestry and sampling location outweighed broad diet as predictors of viral community structure.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Europe

A forest fungus diagnosis came with an assay warning, not confirmed new disease

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, Germany; fir and Douglas-fir specimens
System
Forest pathology, molecular diagnostics and biosecurity

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers identified Biscogniauxia rosacearum in two German conifers while distinguishing it genetically from B. mediterranea. A primer set thought to diagnose the latter amplified B. rosacearum instead, complicating historical records. Both sampled trees carried other diseases, and Koch's postulates have not been met for B. rosacearum in these hosts.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Detection does not equal causation, and an assay's apparent specificity can unravel with better reference material. An accurate diagnostic baseline matters before deciding a fungus is driving an outbreak or merits quarantine controls.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Two host detections, co-occurring pathogens, no proven causal role and no completed phytosanitary risk assessment. The current evidence cannot establish spread velocity, impacts on new conifer hosts or a recommended control regime.

SOURCE

Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection — 29 Oct 2026
View original evidence ↗

Germany's first identified Biscogniauxia rosacearum isolates raised taxonomic and detection questions before pathogenicity could be established.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed North America

Two viruses were detected in one bobcat; a new transmission cycle was not

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Whatcom County, Washington, United States; juvenile bobcat
System
Wildlife disease surveillance and One Health interfaces

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

An investigated rehabilitation-admitted bobcat tested positive for HPAI A(H5N1) genotype D1.1 and SARS-CoV-2. Pathology and clinical findings supported H5N1 disease. The case illustrates how integrated mammalian surveillance can detect multiple pathogens in a host rarely subject to routine population-wide monitoring.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

One Health benefits from separating pathogen detection, disease attribution and demonstrated onward transmission. A single unusual host finding can change surveillance questions without proving a broader epidemiological pattern.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Single opportunistically sampled animal; co-detection does not establish simultaneous active disease from both viruses, their transmission directions, prevalence, reservoir status or spillover to humans.

SOURCE

ASM Animal Microbiology — case report (Aug 2026)
View original evidence ↗

A wildlife case report documented H5N1 and SARS-CoV-2 co-detection while linking clinical illness to avian influenza.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Africa

Urban pigeon injuries in Namibia varied sharply by land use

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Katima Mulilo, Namibia; central business, market and residential sites
System
Urban wildlife health and anthropogenic debris

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers visually assessed 300 rock pigeons and found 46 with foot deformities. Prevalence was 22.5% in residential settings, 12.4% in the central business district and 10.4% at markets; residential birds had approximately twice the odds of deformities relative to central-business birds. Fibrous litter was observed as a plausible entanglement exposure.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Small, chronic injuries can reveal the material ecology of a city. Wildlife-sensitive urban management can be as specific as monitoring and reducing string, thread and similar waste.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a cross-sectional association; researchers did not experimentally trace individual deformities to particular waste items. Odds differences were modest with site and sampling limits, and the findings do not establish a citywide trend.

SOURCE

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution — 29 Oct 2026
View original evidence ↗

Field surveys found foot deformities in 15.3% of 300 pigeons, with the highest proportion in residential areas.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Europe

Deer antibodies may locate tick exposure where surveys are thin

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Stelvio National Park, Italian Alps
System
Ticks; cervid hosts; surveillance

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Sera from 201 red deer harvested in two seasons in 2017–2019 were tested for antibodies to the Ixodes-associated endosymbiont Midichloria mitochondrii. Calves had lower response rates than older deer, and samples differed among park areas, consistent with spatially heterogeneous prior tick contact.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Wildlife serology can prioritize where to deploy direct tick counts and pathogen testing when landscape-scale surveillance is sparse.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Antibodies cannot identify where or when every contact happened, establish present-day tick density or prove infection with a human pathogen. This is an accepted peer-reviewed article awaiting final formatting.

SOURCE

Parasitology Research — Cafiso et al., accepted 28 October 2026
View original evidence ↗

An Italian Alpine sentinel study measures past contact, not confirmed infections.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed North America

Bat immune profiles changed with season, but not all cell types did

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Mexican free-tailed bats, United States
System
Wildlife immune cells; migratory bats; field methods

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers validated four antibody markers and adapted flow cytometry to small Mexican free-tailed bat blood samples. Preliminary cell profiling showed some seasonality in adaptive immune cell populations and B cells across migration and reproductive phases, while granulocyte groups, macrophages and T cells did not show detected seasonal differences.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Sampling timing and the particular cellular endpoint change what a wildlife health comparison can support. A single conventional leukocyte count is not the whole immune process.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is preliminary methodological and observational work, not demonstrated seasonal changes in zoonotic transmission or proof of analogous responses across all bats.

SOURCE

EcoHealth — Allira et al., 28 October 2026
View original evidence ↗

A field-ready cell assay separates seasonal B-cell changes from nondetected shifts in other immune groups.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Asia

A fish-disease investigation isolated an antibiotic-resistant bacterium

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Kolkata-region sewage-fed aquaculture, India
System
Aquaculture health; microbial disease ecology

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers investigated losses in sewage-fed carp culture, isolated Enterococcus gallinarum and assessed its pathogenicity under controlled challenge conditions. The isolate exhibited resistance to several tested antimicrobials.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Aquaculture ecology intersects water quality, fish health and antimicrobial stewardship; distinguishing observed field events from experimental mechanisms is essential.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Controlled infection can show isolate pathogenicity but cannot by itself attribute every field death, quantify human infection risk, or generalize antimicrobial patterns to all farms.

SOURCE

Frontiers in Immunology — Kumar and colleagues (2026 early online)
View original evidence ↗

A carp mortality investigation in India identified Enterococcus gallinarum and demonstrated pathogenicity in challenge trials.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Asia

Mosquito hotspots were concentrated near waste sites in a Thai landscape

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Thailand, village–agriculture–forest gradient
System
Mosquito community and human land use

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Wet- and dry-season collections across domestic, waste-disposal, orchard and forest sites recorded major differences in mosquito assemblages. Dumpsites had high overall abundance; Culex gelidus and Culex vishnui were among dominant species, with Aedes albopictus also detected.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Site-specific waste management and edge habitat may matter in exposure mapping, but control plans require pathogen surveillance and species-specific ecology.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Mosquito abundance is neither infection prevalence nor transmission risk. Site coverage, season and trap method constrain comparisons.

SOURCE

Parasites & Vectors — Brown and colleagues (28 Oct 2026)
View original evidence ↗

Mosquito community sampling across settlements, dumpsites, orchards and forest shows how local land use reshapes vector encounters.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Transregional

In remote forests, the wristwatch may be the better One Health sensor

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Macenta, Guinea, and Malaysian Borneo
System
Human activity mapping; forest–settlement interface; One Health

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A field feasibility study compared GPS wearables and phones among people living or working near remote tropical forests. A custom wrist-worn logger offered practical advantages for battery endurance, location recording and user comfort in low-connectivity conditions, potentially enabling better measurement of where human–wildlife interfaces occur.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The spatial distribution of actual human activity is a prerequisite for credible exposure hypotheses. Tool comfort and operational robustness may shape sampling bias as much as satellite accuracy.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Limited feasibility testing, not evidence of actual spillover or infection. Wearable tracks do not directly observe animal presence, contact or pathogen transmission; privacy and informed consent remain essential.

SOURCE

International Journal of Health Geographics — Lim and colleagues (28 Oct 2026)
View original evidence ↗

Field tests in Guinea and Borneo tested wearable GPS where phones compromise reliable human–wildlife contact mapping.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Africa

Sugarcane fire emissions remain undermeasured in South Africa

Evidence
Peer-reviewed evidence synthesis
Geography
Global sugarcane research, South Africa focus
System
Agricultural burning and emissions exposure

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A systematic review of 177 studies found far more evidence from the United States and Brazil than South Africa; coarse globally calibrated fire inventories can underestimate crop-fire emissions.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Calibrate burning estimates to local fuels and atmospheric measurements before relying on global inventory totals for exposure decisions.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Review evidence, not newly measured South African emissions or a universal health-risk effect size.

SOURCE

Frontiers in Environmental Science (Oct 2026)
View original evidence ↗

A global review finds uneven geography and coarse assumptions in agricultural smoke inventories.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed

Bird nest parasites gave contrasting signals under tree cover

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
House-wren nesting areas, Argentina
System
Avian ectoparasites and nest vegetation

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Philornis larval loads were higher in exotic-tree habitat than fragmented habitat, whereas nest-mite loads were lower in both native- and exotic-tree habitat than fragmented areas.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

A vegetation change can affect distinct parasite groups differently; one burden metric is not whole-system health.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Unreplicated habitat sectors and confounded site differences prevent a causal tree-cover claim.

SOURCE

Parasitology Research (27 Oct 2026)
View original evidence ↗

Fly larvae and mites varied differently across house-wren nesting sectors in Argentina.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed North America

Wild pig control can change the contacts that spread disease

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
122 GPS-collared wild pigs; U.S. study areas
System
Wild-pig movement; control operations and disease ecology

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Koriakin and colleagues compared 122 GPS-collared pigs under aerial operations, trapping and experimental toxic-bait interventions with controls. Trapping and baiting increased movement, while trapping increased duration and number of contacts between animals. Rapid aerial operations showed less movement disruption in the monitored context.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Management read: define the objective as epidemiological or ecological outcome, not just animals removed. For permitted professional operations, consider behavioral disturbance, contact patterns, landscape access and post-treatment surveillance when comparing removal strategies. This is not instruction to deploy poisons or lethal controls.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The behavioral study did not measure an actual outbreak reduction or transmission rate. Techniques have legal, welfare, safety and local-ecology constraints; no treatment from this single study transfers automatically.

SOURCE

Journal of Applied Ecology — Koriakin et al. (22 Oct 2026)
View original evidence ↗

A before–after control-impact study finds some removal methods alter movement and social encounters.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Africa

A contaminated-looking sediment index is not proof of an industrial source

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Nandoni Reservoir, Limpopo, South Africa
System
Reservoir sediments, geogenic metals and exposure screening

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Dalu and colleagues measured 26 elements at 21 sediment stations. Several high chromium and nickel concentrations aligned with natural mineral signals; comparison benchmarks dramatically changed calculated pollution indices. The paper explicitly distinguishes screening thresholds from demonstrated ecological harm.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

A red number on a contamination dashboard is a prompt to investigate sources, speciation, exposure and ecological effects—not a self-validating diagnosis. The counter-signal cuts both ways: natural geology can confound anthropogenic attribution, while measured hazards still warrant attention.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

One-season sampling cannot conclusively partition all sources or quantify real health outcomes; lithogenic interpretation does not rule out diffuse human contamination.

SOURCE

Environmental Geochemistry and Health — Dalu et al. (26 Oct 2026)
View original evidence ↗

South African reservoir chemistry shows why natural mineral backgrounds and hazard screens need separation.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed North America

A dye tracer exposes a hidden wastewater route to a Grand Canyon spring

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Grand Canyon South Rim and Monument spring, Arizona, USA
System
Karst and structural groundwater pathways; treated wastewater

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A U.S. Geological Survey-led field investigation combined dye tracing, artificial sweeteners, PFAS and water isotopes near a decades-old treated-wastewater discharge. Dye injected into wastewater was detected at Monument spring after approximately four to six months, and remained detectable for around five months.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Watershed or infrastructure boundaries drawn at the surface cannot stand in for actual groundwater pathways. The finding supports targeted source tracking and long-duration sampling rather than assuming local discharge remains local.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

A confirmed connection at Monument spring does not establish the same connection at other South Rim springs; tracer travel times vary with flow conditions.

SOURCE

Hydrogeology Journal — Beisner et al. (26 Oct 2026)
View original evidence ↗

Subsurface travel times put new evidence behind groundwater-connectivity concerns.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Antarctic

Antarctic bacteria reduced perchlorate in tubes, not an ecosystem

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Cierva Point, Antarctic Peninsula
System
Polar marine sediments / microbial remediation

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Eleven cultured bacterial isolates from Antarctic sediments were screened for perchlorate tolerance and removal. All grew at 10,000 mg/L in cultures, five tolerated 15,000 mg/L, and isolates reduced perchlorate by about 40–52% in separate assays.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Worth watching for methods development in cold-region pollution remediation. The next tests are enzyme/pathway verification, growth conditions, field performance and risk to native microbial communities.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Growth tolerance is not biodegradation; proposed enzymatic pathways were not directly measured and no ecosystem-scale intervention was attempted.

SOURCE

Puentes-Martínez et al. · Biodegradation · Antarctic isolate screening
View original evidence ↗

Contaminant removal from controlled culture is a bioremediation lead, not a deployed solution.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Global

A bacterial addition improved nitrogen removal inside treatment reactors

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Experimental activated-sludge system
System
Wastewater treatment / nitrogen

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

An experimental activated-sludge system inoculated with Bacillus amyloliquefaciens removed more dissolved organic nitrogen. At the reported optimal 10% inoculation rate, removal of DON, ammonium and total nitrogen was 91.68%, 95.79% and 61.54% respectively.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Wastewater engineering is ecology upstream: reductions in plant effluent loads may matter for river nutrients, but the link must be followed through operational performance and receiving-water response.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The report is an early peer-reviewed accepted article, subject to copyediting; reactor results do not establish real-world plant scale, economic feasibility or ecological recovery.

SOURCE

Yao et al. · Applied Water Science · nitrogen-reactor experiment
View original evidence ↗

Wastewater process evidence needs downstream ecological validation.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Asia

A river quality model predicts its index better than a simple regression

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Satluj and Beas rivers, Indian Punjab
System
River water-quality monitoring

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Using measured water chemistry and microbial indicators, researchers compared methods for predicting a calculated water-quality index. A random forest reported R² of 0.97 versus 0.64 for multiple linear regression; dissolved oxygen, biological oxygen demand and coliform variables remained important.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The practical question is whether quicker data analysis improves sampling and intervention decisions. Water safety requires direct contaminant measurement and proper validation, not a model score.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The response index is itself calculated from input variables, so fitted accuracy is not independent potability validation and might not transfer to other watersheds.

SOURCE

Discover Water · Beas/Satluj water-index model comparison
View original evidence ↗

High water-index accuracy is not a new independent potability measurement.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Africa

Four South African snakes responded differently to a simulated threatening arm

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
South Africa
System
Reptile behavior / human-wildlife interface

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

In a small staged encounter, none of 21 Mozambique spitting cobras struck the model arm, while some tested puff adders, black mambas and snouted cobras did. Repeated trials tended to increase defensive responses; escape was common when permitted.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Wildlife-conflict education should emphasize avoidance and trained response rather than portraying snakes as invariably aggressive. Context matters for risk.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Small groups, captive or structured trials, and an artificial arm limit conclusions about actual bite rates in the wild.

SOURCE

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology · four-species snake behavior trial
View original evidence ↗

Trial context can shape defensive reactions more than a simplistic species reputation.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Europe

A landfill-fire plume may need more than the usual benzo[a]pyrene test

Evidence
Peer-reviewed residue chemistry and risk modeling
Geography
Furniture-waste landfill fire, Poland
System
Post-industrial soil contamination and groundwater risk

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Analysis of 13 post-fire residue samples identified multiple parent and alkylated PAHs; benzo[a]pyrene drove modeled direct-contact carcinogenic risk while more mobile fluoranthene drove modeled groundwater concern.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Remediation and sampling plans need exposure-route-specific indicator compounds; one pollutant can be an inadequate proxy for all ecological pathways.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Risk estimates modeled mobility and exposure; direct groundwater contamination, population impacts and remediation performance were not field-measured.

SOURCE

Environmental Geochemistry and Health — Rykała et al. (2026)
View original evidence ↗

Polish fire-residue chemistry distinguished direct contact hazard from modeled water mobility.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
North America

A mostly clean Arctic fish survey found one PFAS hotspot that changes the monitoring question

Evidence
Peer-reviewed field contaminant survey
Geography
Brooks Range and Dalton Highway corridor, Alaska
System
Arctic freshwater rivers and lakes

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Fraley and colleagues measured metals and PFAS across aquatic media and fish in northern Alaska. Most fish contained no or trace PFAS, while samples near the Tea Lake outlet recorded PFOS as high as 40 µg/kg in a composite Arctic grayling sample; some large predatory fish also exceeded mercury consumption-advice thresholds.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

A landscape-wide average could conceal a localized exposure route with major implications for subsistence users. An appropriate next step is site-specific repeat testing, community engagement and appropriate agency assessment, not a blanket claim that northern waters are either safe or contaminated.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Observational, spatially selective sampling; limited samples at individual sites. The study does not prove the source of Tea Lake PFOS or establish universal dietary advice. Comparisons use thresholds from multiple jurisdictions.

SOURCE

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment — Fraley et al. (2026)
View original evidence ↗

Brooks Range sampling found widespread low contamination but a conspicuous industrial-adjacent exception.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed

Coral-associated bacteria make steroids that influence their host's heat response

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Saadiyat reef, Arabian Gulf near Abu Dhabi, UAE; laboratory isolates
System
Coral reef microbiomes / thermal stress

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Combining sampling of Acropora pharaonis, multi-omics and lab work with three Endozoicomonas isolates, scientists demonstrated bacterial capacity to convert cholesterol to testosterone and progesterone. Immune response assays associated these hormones with pro-survival signaling and reduced inflammatory responses under heat stress.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Microbial function may help explain why corals experiencing similar heat differ in their responses. It identifies a mechanistic hypothesis worth testing, not a field-ready remedy.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Laboratory metabolism and host signaling results are not evidence that adding these bacteria restores or saves whole reefs.

SOURCE

Nature Microbiology — Mohamed et al. (2026)
View original evidence ↗

Coral Endozoicomonas bacteria were shown to produce steroid hormones and affect immune signaling in stress experiments.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Latin America & Caribbean

Belize's reef disease shifted forms as the coral community thinned

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Carrie Bow Cay, Belize Barrier Reef, Belize
System
Coral reef / disease ecology

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Surveys beginning in 2019 found average coral disease prevalence of about 0.5%; following the spread of stony coral tissue loss disease it reached about 6.2% by 2022. By 2024 average prevalence was 4.2%, but chronic tissue-loss symptoms in Siderastrea siderea accounted for about 90% of diseased colonies. Across the study, coral colony density declined 73.4%, richness declined 33%, and sponge cover rose from 1.3% to 4.5%. The 2023 bleaching event added a distinct pressure.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

A falling prevalence of the first disease does not necessarily mean a reef is returning to its former composition. Monitoring that follows both disease identity and the surviving host community can detect a transition from one ecological state to another.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Observations are concentrated around one monitored reef locality and associated surveys; different disease syndromes and heat stress co-occurred. Observational time series do not isolate a single causal contribution to every coral loss. The study does not establish future trajectories throughout the Caribbean.

SOURCE

Frontiers in Marine Science — Aeby et al. (2026)
View original evidence ↗

Longitudinal Carrie Bow Cay surveys reveal multiple disease phases rather than a single outbreak-and-recovery curve.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Oceania

PFAS were not detectable everywhere in Queensland's sampled waters

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Eastern Queensland, Australia
System
Surface-water pollution monitoring

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Six sampling rounds in 2019–2020 at fifty-four sites found no results above reporting limits for any of thirty targeted PFAS at nine sites. Sixteen analytes were never reported across all sites; PFOS was more prevalent nearer major cities.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Evidence for null detections matters, but detecting or failing to detect a chemical is a function of analytical limits, time, location and compound coverage.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Non-detection is not chemical absence; only thirty compounds were targeted, thresholds varied, and many inland waterways were not sampled.

SOURCE

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment — Baddiley et al. (2026)
View original evidence ↗

A geographic null finding complicates sweeping contamination claims.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Global

A reservoir's unpleasant odor can reflect upstream microbial ecology

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
International freshwater reservoir synthesis
System
Drinking-water reservoirs

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A review links geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol taste-and-odor episodes to interactions among cyanobacteria, microbes, nutrient cycling and water-column conditions, rather than one isolated variable.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Coupled microbial, chemical and temperature profiling may provide better early warnings for water managers than waiting for treatment-plant complaints.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Synthesis and modelling agenda, not a universal validated warning system; taste complaints do not themselves demonstrate toxic exposure.

SOURCE

Current Water Management Reports — Hooper et al. (2026)
View original evidence ↗

Taste-and-odor science links cyanobacteria to stratification, nutrients and redox cycles.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Africa

Cassava pests and crop traits varied across Sierra Leone's regions

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Sierra Leone, five regions
System
Smallholder crop disease ecology

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A January 2022 survey measured morphology, pests and cassava mosaic symptoms on 276 farms, sampling 30 plants per farm. Whitefly and grasshopper counts varied geographically, and disease-severity patterns differed by farm size.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Local planting-material networks and landscape context matter more than assuming a nationally uniform pest or cultivar profile.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Single seasonal snapshot; symptoms and farm associations cannot prove infection routes or a protective leaf trait.

SOURCE

Discover Agriculture — Amara et al. (2026)
View original evidence ↗

Farm visits expose disease, planting-material and agroecological heterogeneity.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Latin America & Caribbean

Crop rotation changed pathogen signals more clearly than soil diversity

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Tropical field site, Brazil
System
Cropland microbiome and pathogens

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

In a four-season maize–soybean experiment, rotation did not detectably improve bacterial diversity in early seasons. In the fourth season rotation history coincided with lower fum1 abundance in bulk soil, while crop-residue and disease responses pointed differently.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Microbial-diversity scores, pathogen DNA in soil and real crop disease can tell different stories; sample more than one biological compartment.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Single site and four plots per treatment, with low power for early-season comparisons. No broadly generalizable causal crop-rotation prescription.

SOURCE

World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology — Almeida et al. (2026)
View original evidence ↗

A tropical Brazilian experiment reports mixed, underpowered microbial outcomes.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed

A border-region flea survey detects pathogens, not proven transmission

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
China–Kazakhstan border pastoral area; January 2025 sheep/flea samples
System
Working-land livestock; ectoparasites; zoonotic and veterinary pathogens

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Investigators tested 89 fleas collected from sheep near the China–Kazakhstan border and reported pathogen DNA, including Coxiella burnetii and Anaplasma ovis markers, in subsets of tested fleas. Molecular detection establishes an exposure or contamination signal within the sampling conditions.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Keep a weak signal in the back of your mind: pastoral disease surveillance may benefit from linking arthropod identification, animal infection testing and routes of trade or movement, before deciding which insects are actual transmission threats.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

PCR detection alone does not establish live pathogens, flea-to-host transmission or a local outbreak. Small samples from one season and animal host cannot support a regional infection prevalence estimate or policy prescription.

SOURCE

Acta Parasitologica · China–Kazakhstan livestock flea PCR study
View original evidence ↗

Molecular signals in sheep-associated fleas near Kazakhstan suggest a One Health surveillance question without establishing vector competence.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Asia

Two deer species shared much of a captive gut-microbiome signal

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Yinchuan, China; captive sika and fallow deer
System
Captive ungulate microbiomes; veterinary and wildlife disease ecology

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers profiled gut bacterial communities of 22 captive sika and fallow deer. Their analyses found broad overlap rather than a strong overall species separation; several proposed functional differences were not robust after accounting for multiple tests.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Species labels alone may be weak predictors of captive microbial communities. A stronger monitoring design would consider shared feed, enclosure, health and age before interpreting a difference as a species-specific disease signal.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Sample size, shared zoo environment, inference from sequences and multiple comparisons limit conclusions. No demonstration of wild deer microbiomes, pathogen transmission or health impacts follows from this captive observational comparison.

SOURCE

AMB Express · captive deer gut microbiome comparison
View original evidence ↗

A small zoological comparison found substantial overlap, with exploratory differences too limited to support general wildlife-health claims.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Latin America & Caribbean

Mercury does not stop at soil in a Brazilian savanna

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Águas Emendadas Ecological Station, Cerrado, central Brazil
System
Tropical savanna litter, soils and invertebrate food webs

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers measured total mercury in surface soils, plant litter and litter-associated invertebrates in a protected Cerrado landscape. Mean measured concentrations differed across compartments, including approximately 51.7 ng/g in litter versus 34.9 ng/g in soil; higher invertebrate trophic groups tended to carry elevated concentrations in the samples.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Monitoring only water or bulk soil may miss exposure pathways through the litter layer and its consumers. Biodiversity surveys and contamination screening should be designed around the actual food web and which mercury species organisms accumulate.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Site-specific cross-sectional measurements cannot demonstrate population effects, contamination sources or an exposure threshold. Total mercury is not synonymous with methylmercury, and apparent trophic enrichment does not by itself prove biomagnification.

SOURCE

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment · Cerrado mercury food-web study
View original evidence ↗

Litter and invertebrate observations suggest a pathway for mercury into food webs, without measuring a food-safety outcome.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Oceania

Removing herbivores did not simply undo invasive-grass effects

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Six livestock-grazed farms in temperate Australian grassy woodlands
System
Native grassy woodlands; invasive grasses; herbivory; foliar microbiomes

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Across six Australian farms, researchers nested herbivore-exclusion treatments in plots dominated by native kangaroo grass or co-dominated by invasive African lovegrass. Invasion and herbivore exclusion both altered litter, microclimate, leaf-associated microbial communities and arthropod assemblages. Phyllosphere diversity generally declined under the interacting disturbances, and mammal exclusion changed fungal infection patterns affecting the native grass.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The most useful management signal is that grazing and invasion cannot always be treated as independent switches. The ecological result of removing herbivores depends on which native and invasive species—and microbial interactions—are present; evaluate the whole plant–consumer system.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Experimental results are local to six grazed farms and nested treatments. 'Buffering' by some herbivores is not a universal endorsement of livestock grazing or evidence of recovery in native plant populations.

SOURCE

Fioratti Junod et al. · iScience · grassland invasion and herbivore exclusion
View original evidence ↗

A six-farm Australian experiment linked mammal exclusion and African lovegrass invasion to changing microbes and arthropods.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Latin America & Caribbean

Amazon floodplain microplastics appeared at both fishing and settlement sites

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Lake Canaçari, Central Amazon, Brazil; dry-season sampling
System
Floodplain lake; microplastic monitoring; freshwater sediments

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Dry-season sampling detected microplastics across surveyed areas of Amazonian Lake Canaçari. Water concentrations ranged from no particles in one sample to 1,000 particles per cubic meter, averaging about 405; sediments ranged from 7 to 307 particles per kilogram, averaging about 77. Blue fibers dominated, and fishing-versus-settlement sampling groups did not differ significantly in measured particle concentrations.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

A mapped local human-use category can be a poor proxy for where mobile contaminants accumulate in connected floodplain waters. Repeated seasonal and hydrologic monitoring is needed before a management team attributes material to a specific shore use.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

These are field detections during one hydrologic season, not proof of source, toxic dose or ecosystem damage. No significant between-group difference is not evidence that all locations or all seasons are equivalent.

SOURCE

Guimarães et al. · Environmental Monitoring and Assessment · Amazon lake microplastics
View original evidence ↗

A newly published lake survey found pervasive particles but no significant contrast between its land-use groupings.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Global

Cyanobacterial crop biostimulants have promising mechanisms and uneven proof

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Global agricultural research; literature synthesis
System
Agricultural soils; cyanobacterial biostimulants; crop microbiomes

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A narrative review synthesizes biological nitrogen fixation, nutrient mobilization, metabolites, phytohormones and possible stress responses from cyanobacteria used in crop systems. It concludes that direct functional evidence connecting specific compounds or pathways to crop responses remains limited and that strain, formulation, host plant and growing conditions materially affect results.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

For a land manager, the label 'microbial solution' is a hypothesis until treatment outcomes, realistic application costs and biosafety are measured under field conditions.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a review, not a new controlled field efficacy trial. The authors identify cyanotoxin risk at strain level and the need for toxicological screening; do not infer products are uniformly safe.

SOURCE

Machado et al. · Archives of Microbiology · critical biostimulant review (15 Oct 2026)
View original evidence ↗

A research review distinguishes biochemical potential from tested field performance and safety.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Africa

Rwanda's Nyabugogo River carried a changing mix of organic contaminants

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Nyabugogo River watershed, Rwanda; 45 rural, peri-urban and urban water samples
System
Urbanizing freshwater catchments; pharmaceuticals and pesticides

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers screened 45 water samples by liquid-chromatography mass spectrometry, quantifying 57 pharmaceuticals, five pesticides and four polyphenols. Average concentrations reached 960 ng/L for albendazole, 70 ng/L for metalaxyl and 49 ng/L for caffeic acid among the highlighted compounds. Pharmaceuticals were higher at urban sites, while other substance groups varied by land use. Some contaminant concentrations changed substantially within the same day even when between-day conditions appeared more stable.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

A river is not represented by one sample taken at noon. Monitoring programs that cross rapidly urbanizing catchments need to resolve both land-use gradients and the timing of waste inputs. The useful contribution is a contaminant baseline for water-management decisions—not a conclusion that every measured compound has already damaged aquatic wildlife.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Chemical detections and concentrations alone do not establish toxicity, exposure to particular organisms or population effects. The observations cannot conclusively apportion discharges to individual sources, and sampling represents the examined times and locations.

SOURCE

Mukarunyana et al. · Environmental Monitoring and Assessment · Nyabugogo field analysis (15 Oct 2026)
View original evidence ↗

Sampling from rural reaches to Kigali quantified drugs, pesticides and other compounds—while concentrations changed even within a day.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed North America

Portable DNA sequencing identified multiple harmful-algae taxa in a Florida estuary

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Indian River Lagoon, Florida, United States; 20 sampling sites
System
Estuaries; harmful algal bloom surveillance

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers analyzed environmental DNA in water samples from 20 Indian River Lagoon sites using an Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencer and a eukaryotic ribosomal RNA marker. They detected 11 taxa associated with harmful algal blooms, including some at low abundance. The results show the potential of long-read sequencing to characterize these communities; they should not be read as a demonstrated operational bloom-warning system.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Species-level signals may improve the interval between field sampling and a management conversation. But biodiversity detection must be connected to toxicity measurements, environmental conditions and decisions before it becomes an early-warning system.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Detecting genetic material does not establish a toxic bloom, current toxin exposure or predictive accuracy. Portability and real-time sequencing do not by themselves establish a validated sample-to-warning turnaround time. This is a methods demonstration, not evidence of prevented health or fisheries harm.

SOURCE

PLOS Water · Indian River Lagoon eDNA sequencing study
View original evidence ↗

University of South Florida research announcement
View supporting source ↗

Sequencing water samples from 20 sites identified 11 bloom-associated taxa; detecting their DNA is not the same as forecasting a harmful bloom.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Antarctic

Antarctic penguin deaths first linked to bird flu were largely avian cholera

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Danger Islands, Antarctic Peninsula; March 2024 mortality investigation
System
Seabird colonies; wildlife infectious disease ecology

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Investigators examining dead Antarctic seabirds associated widespread Adélie penguin mortality with Pasteurella multocida, the bacterium causing avian cholera. The organism was identified in 46 of 49 sampled animals; highly pathogenic avian influenza was found in only a few. Related bacterial lineages had been recorded previously in the region.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

When a dominant outbreak narrative takes hold, managers can miss another persistent threat. Independent pathology and multi-pathogen testing matter both for credible attribution and for building wildlife-health surveillance that catches less visible threats.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Samples were collected from a particular event and do not represent all dead penguins across Antarctica. Genetic similarity alone does not establish a specific transmission route or date of introduction.

SOURCE

Proceedings of the Royal Society B · penguin mortality investigation
View original evidence ↗

UC Davis research announcement
View supporting source ↗

Pathology and genetic analysis give a different diagnosis of a major wildlife mortality event.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Europe

On Spanish farms, wildlife cameras detected more taxa than water eDNA

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
13 livestock farms in Spain
System
Working-land wildlife communities; waterhole surveillance

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers compared camera traps and environmental DNA water sampling across 13 farms in Spain. Under their sampling design, camera traps detected higher taxonomic richness; eDNA detectability varied with animal ecology and group behavior. Molecular water signals also varied with some livestock-density measures.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

An assay can be technically sensitive yet miss animals that rarely contact the sampling medium. Wildlife disease-interface monitoring is strongest when detections are designed around the species and behavior being measured, rather than declaring one tool universally superior.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

One waterbody was sampled per farm and trap placement and effort differed by method. No pathogen transmission or disease reduction was demonstrated.

SOURCE

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution · field monitoring comparison
View original evidence ↗

A livestock–wildlife monitoring comparison finds complementarity, not an all-purpose replacement method.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Europe

Honey-bee virus recombinants are showing up inside collapsed colonies without a simple parent-virus story

Evidence
Peer-reviewed metatranscriptomic / long-read sequencing study
Geography
Three Central European apiaries with winter-collapsed colonies
System
Managed pollinator / agroecosystem

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Metatranscriptomics of pooled dead bees and targeted Nanopore sequencing of individual bees identified five recombinant deformed-wing-virus variants built on a DWV-B backbone with DWV-A-derived sequence in the 5′/leader-protein region. Some individuals carried recombinants without detectable parental variants, and individual bees could carry multiple recombinants.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

This is worth watching because viral population structure may shift faster than routine colony-level diagnostics capture. Long-read sequencing can reveal within-host recombinant diversity that pooled presence/absence tests hide.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Detection of a recombinant genome does not demonstrate independent viral replication, and this study does not show that recombinants caused the colony collapses. Only three apiaries were examined, Varroa status was incompletely resolved, and winter loss is multifactorial.

SOURCE

Scientific Reports — primary study
View original evidence ↗

Long-read sequencing in three apiaries found five DWV-B/DWV-A recombinant variants, including individual bees where recombinants were detected without one or both parental variants.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Latin America & Caribbean

Forest configuration may change zoonotic risk in ways forest area alone does not

Evidence
Peer-reviewed observational landscape epidemiology
Geography
Brazilian Atlantic Forest municipalities
System
Atlantic Forest / agricultural mosaics

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Using municipality-level Brazilian spotted-fever incidence from 2001–2019 with landscape and climate variables, mixed models found higher incidence in less fragmented landscapes when riparian forests were embedded in pastoral and agricultural mosaics. Cases also tended to be higher in cooler municipalities. The study treats landscape structure as part of the host–vector–human exposure system rather than assuming forest amount has one-directional effects.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Restoration design can change exposure pathways as well as habitat. In disease-sensitive landscapes, where forest is placed and how it connects to old-growth forest, farms and people may matter as much as total restored area. The practical lesson is to integrate disease surveillance and landscape history into restoration planning instead of treating riparian planting as ecologically context-free.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is an observational municipality-level study and does not show that riparian restoration itself causes Brazilian spotted fever. Tick, host and human-exposure processes vary locally, and the policy implications require site-specific epidemiological and ecological validation.

SOURCE

Journal of Applied Ecology — primary study
View original evidence ↗

Brazilian spotted-fever incidence was highest in less fragmented Atlantic Forest landscapes where riparian forest sat inside pasture–agriculture mosaics—complicating simple “restore more riparian forest” prescriptions.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Europe

Northern Italy’s sand flies carry a recurring Wolbachia lineage that databases do not yet match

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Northern Italy
System
Vector / peri-urban and rural habitats

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers screened 1,937 sand flies in 124 pools collected from 24 sites during 2023–2025. Overall Wolbachia prevalence was estimated at 38.7%, with strong year-to-year variation. Eleven complete MLST profiles, all from Phlebotomus perniciosus, belonged to Supergroup B and shared an identical profile that had no exact match in public databases.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Natural symbiont surveillance can reveal biological structure that standard vector datasets miss. The result is a foundation for asking whether this lineage changes sand-fly reproduction or pathogen transmission, not evidence that it already provides a control tool.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Prevalence was estimated from pooled samples and varied by year. The study characterized infection and phylogeny; it did not test effects on vector competence, pathogen transmission, survival or the feasibility of Wolbachia-based control.

SOURCE

Parasites & Vectors — primary study
View original evidence ↗

Screening 1,937 sand flies found substantial natural Wolbachia occurrence, while 11 complete profiles from Phlebotomus perniciosus were identical and lacked an exact public-database match.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Institutional report

Pacific One Health is moving from concept toward coordination under El Niño—outcomes are still untested

Evidence
Institutional / NGO report
Geography
Pacific region; workshop in Nadi, Fiji
System
Human–animal–environment health governance

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A 2 October joint release from WHO, FAO, UNEP and WOAH reports that Pacific countries and regional partners used the second Pacific One Health Workshop to review progress since 2024 and identify priorities for governance, surveillance, risk assessment, pandemic preparedness, food safety, antimicrobial resistance, environmental integration and climate-related health risks. The release explicitly links current El Niño-driven drought and heat to heightened diarrhoeal-disease and malnutrition risk and emphasizes multisector coordination across governments, regional bodies and communities.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The weak signal is institutional: One Health is becoming an operating architecture rather than only a conceptual frame in a climate-vulnerable region. If the coordination mechanisms persist, ecology, animal health and public health data may increasingly need to share surveillance and decision pathways.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a joint institutional news release about a workshop and planned coordination, not an independent evaluation of implementation or health/ecological outcomes. Reported priorities and expected benefits should not be treated as demonstrated effectiveness.

SOURCE

WHO / FAO / UNEP / WOAH — joint news release
View original evidence ↗

A Fiji workshop brought Pacific governments and regional partners across health, animal, environment and climate sectors together around governance, surveillance and joint action as El Niño risks rise.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Transregional

Toxic Microcystis blooms did not carry one repeatable microbial signature across Guatemala and Poland

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Lake Amatitlán and Laguna del Pino, Guatemala; Sulejów Reservoir, Poland
System
Freshwater lakes and reservoirs

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A comparative study sampled hypertrophic Lake Amatitlán and mesotrophic Laguna del Pino in Guatemala and eutrophic Sulejów Reservoir in Poland. Lake Amatitlán was dominated by Microcystis and had the highest measured microcystins—20.39 and 47.68 µg/L at the urban- and agricultural-catchment sites—while lower-nutrient Laguna del Pino was diatom-dominated with no detected microcystins. Sulejów shifted seasonally among cyanobacterial assemblages. 16S sequencing showed distinct associated bacterial communities among lakes and seasonal stages.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Harmful-bloom monitoring benefits from treating the catchment, cyanobacteria, toxins and microbiome as one changing system. The label ‘Microcystis bloom’ can conceal very different nutrient context, toxicity and bacterial associates.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The comparison includes only three freshwater systems and different seasonal sampling contexts, so climate zone, land use, trophic state and season cannot be cleanly separated. Community associations do not establish causal microbial interactions or predict toxicity at unsampled times.

SOURCE

Hydrobiologia — primary study
View original evidence ↗

Three freshwater systems differed sharply in cyanobacteria, microcystins and associated bacterial communities, with catchment nutrients and seasonal context shaping the pattern.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Global

Manure can build soil organic matter while quietly accumulating a different set of liabilities

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Field studies across agricultural systems
System
Agricultural soils and nutrient management

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A new review synthesizes field-based evidence on repeated manure application. It finds generally higher soil organic matter, aggregation, microbial biomass and enzyme activity, but also cumulative risks including phosphorus accumulation, nitrate leaching, greenhouse-gas emissions, heavy-metal buildup and antibiotic-resistance genes. The authors emphasize saturation, legacy effects and the interaction of rate, timing, soil texture and application method.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Organic nutrient sources are not automatically low-risk. The management problem is a balance sheet: soil structure and fertility can improve while long-lived nutrient or contaminant liabilities accumulate outside the timeframe of a short yield trial.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a narrative review rather than a quantitative meta-analysis, and the underlying studies vary greatly by manure type, loading rate, soil, climate and duration. The review supports context-specific risk management, not a universal threshold or a conclusion that manure is inherently preferable or harmful.

SOURCE

Water, Air, & Soil Pollution — review
View original evidence ↗

A field-evidence review finds long-term manure benefits are coupled to phosphorus, nitrate, greenhouse-gas, metal and antibiotic-resistance risks that short studies can miss.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed

Eight years of chickpea surveillance exposed disease hotspots that a state average would hide

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
28 districts and 305 talukas, Maharashtra, India
System
Chickpea working lands and soil-borne disease

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

From 2018–2025, an ICT-based pest-surveillance program tracked chickpea wilt across 5,039 villages in 305 talukas and 28 districts. The study identified persistent hotspot districts and large within-district differences, while overall incidence declined markedly after the 2018–2020 epidemic period. The authors connect the decline with resistant cultivars, Trichoderma-based integrated disease management and mobile advisory dissemination.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The strongest contribution is the spatial surveillance architecture: management can be targeted to talukas where disease pressure persists rather than treating a whole state as one risk class. The long record also shows how operational monitoring can turn plant disease into a landscape-management problem.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This was not a randomized test of the advisory program. Weather, cultivar adoption, crop rotation, management intensity and surveillance conditions changed through time, so the decline cannot be attributed solely to ICT-enabled integrated disease management.

SOURCE

Scientific Reports — primary study
View original evidence ↗

ICT-based monitoring across 305 talukas in Maharashtra found strongly uneven Fusarium-wilt patterns and a broad decline after the 2018–2020 epidemic years.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Africa

Ghana’s first fire-site PFOA/PFOS baseline found hotspots—but not a single source story

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Selected fire-outbreak sites, Ghana
System
Soil and freshwater contamination

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers sampled soils at 18 fire-affected sites, surface water at seven sites and one shallow well, measuring PFOA and PFOS. A deterministic screening analysis produced hazard indices above one at one surface-water location and the well, identifying sites that warrant closer investigation rather than establishing a regional contamination pattern.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

A baseline is useful when it stays a baseline. The decision signal is where additional source tracing and exposure work are justified—not that all fire sites share one contamination pathway or public-health consequence.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Only two legacy PFAS compounds were measured, the water sample is small, and the cross-sectional design cannot attribute contamination uniquely to aqueous film-forming foam or establish disease risk. Screening ratios are not equivalent to regulatory findings or clinical exposure assessment.

SOURCE

Water, Air, & Soil Pollution — primary study
View original evidence ↗

Across fire-affected soils and nearby waters, a few sites crossed screening thresholds under EPA-based assumptions, while the study explicitly could not attribute contamination uniquely to firefighting foam.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed North America

White-nose syndrome is showing up in the Black Hills as a community shift, not only a species-by-species decline

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Black Hills, South Dakota, USA
System
Temperate bat community

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A study compared summer bat capture rates during early white-nose-syndrome invasion in 2017–2019 with 2022–2024, after the pathogen became established in the Black Hills. WNS-susceptible Myotis species declined steeply in captures, while several less-susceptible taxa increased, indicating a substantial change in the observed community.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Disease can reorganize the community that monitoring encounters, not merely reduce a focal species. That changes how acoustic or capture baselines should be interpreted after invasion and makes ‘total bat activity’ a potentially misleading recovery metric.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Capture rates are not complete population censuses and can respond to sampling conditions, habitat use and other ecological pressures. The authors themselves interpret the changes as reflecting WNS alongside broader ecological forces rather than assigning every trend to disease alone.

SOURCE

Journal of Mammalogy
View original evidence ↗

Summer captures fell steeply for WNS-susceptible Myotis after the fungus became established, while captures of less-susceptible taxa increased.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Institutional report

Bhutan’s rabies milestone is a One Health result built to survive validation, not a vaccination campaign in isolation

Evidence
Institutional / NGO report
Geography
Bhutan
System
Human–animal disease system

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

WHO validated Bhutan’s elimination of dog-transmitted human rabies as a public-health problem after a dossier review and field mission in August 2026. Bhutan has recorded zero human deaths from dog-mediated rabies since June 2023. The programme combines mass dog vaccination, dog-population management, free post-exposure prophylaxis, integrated human–animal surveillance, community participation and cross-border coordination.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The ecological-intelligence lesson is institutional: disease control at an animal–human interface works as a maintained system of surveillance, veterinary action, human healthcare, community participation and boundary coordination. The validation standard matters as much as the headline milestone.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

WHO validation concerns dog-mediated human rabies as a public-health problem; it does not mean rabies virus is absent from all animals or that reintroduction risk has disappeared. Continued vaccination, surveillance, PEP access and cross-border coordination remain necessary.

SOURCE

World Health Organization
View original evidence ↗

WHO validated Bhutan as the first country in its South-East Asia Region to eliminate dog-mediated human rabies as a public-health problem after reviewing surveillance, field implementation and programme records.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Latin America & Caribbean

A bat immune marker changed with sex, age and season instead of tracking one simple physiological state

Evidence
Peer-reviewed field physiology study
Geography
Trinidad
System
Tropical bat population / wildlife physiology

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Field sampling of wild greater spear-nosed bats found urinary neopterin positively associated with cortisol, with age-related decline in males but not females and lower male levels during the mating season. The marker therefore reflected multiple biological axes rather than one simple immune state.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Wildlife-health biomarkers become much more useful when their demographic and seasonal baselines are known. Without that context, normal sex or life-history variation can be misread as disease or stress.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is one species and field population, and neopterin is a biomarker rather than a direct measure of disease outcome. Correlations with cortisol do not establish causation, and the demographic patterns should not be generalized to other bat taxa without validation.

SOURCE

Scientific Reports
View original evidence ↗

In wild greater spear-nosed bats, urinary neopterin covaried with cortisol and showed sex- and age-dependent patterns, complicating its use as a stand-alone immune indicator.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Arctic

Community-based Inuit surveillance detected an emerging caribou disease outbreak

Evidence
Peer-reviewed community-based wildlife health surveillance
Geography
Nunavut, Canadian Arctic
System
Barren-ground caribou and Arctic food system

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A community-based surveillance program working with Inuit harvesters documented visible lesions and filarial nematodes in harvested barren-ground caribou, including Setaria yehi and Onchocerca lineage 2. The study links local observations, veterinary investigation and molecular identification to characterize syndromes that conventional wildlife-health systems could otherwise miss across a remote landscape.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The important result is as much about surveillance architecture as the parasites themselves. Harvesters operate across places and seasons that formal monitoring samples sparsely, so durable community partnerships can create earlier, geographically richer wildlife-health intelligence while keeping observations connected to food security and local knowledge.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The observations do not establish a population-wide prevalence trend or prove that climate change caused the infections. Sampling is tied to subsistence harvest rather than a randomized population survey, and the study does not quantify human food-safety risk. Climate sensitivity is a plausible ecological context, not a single demonstrated causal pathway.

SOURCE

Scientific Reports
View original evidence ↗

Community-based surveillance in Nunavut documented filarial infections and lesions in barren-ground caribou, showing how Indigenous harvesting networks can extend wildlife-health detection across a rapidly changing Arctic.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Africa

Outbreak genomics can narrow antibody hypotheses before it can establish treatment efficacy

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda
System
Bundibugyo virus outbreak / One Health disease system

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers analyzed 44 Bundibugyo virus sequences, including 12 from the 2026 outbreak, and used genomic and structural analyses to assess how existing Ebola monoclonal antibodies may bind the outbreak glycoprotein.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Rapid genomic analysis can prioritize which countermeasures deserve laboratory and clinical attention during an outbreak, shortening the hypothesis space before definitive efficacy evidence exists.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The paper predicts antibody binding and potential efficacy; it does not demonstrate clinical effectiveness in patients. The published version is an early peer-reviewed article that remains subject to editorial replacement by the final version of record.

SOURCE

Nature Communications
View original evidence ↗

EvidencePeer-reviewedGeographyDemocratic Republic of the Congo and UgandaSystemBundibugyo virus outbreak / One Health disease system WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS Researchers analyzed 44 Bundibugyo virus sequences, including 12 from the 2026 outbreak,

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Government data North America

The U.S. mammal H5N1 detection table is still changing—and still incomplete

Evidence
Government data
Geography
United States
System
Wildlife, captive mammals and avian-influenza surveillance

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

USDA APHIS updated its mammal HPAI detections page on September 25. The table includes recent 2026 detections in mammals and explicitly warns that data may be incomplete and that additional detections will be added.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The useful signal is surveillance breadth, not a claim of sustained mammal transmission. A dynamic cross-species detection ledger helps identify where wildlife, domestic animals and disease-monitoring systems intersect.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Detection does not establish onward mammal-to-mammal transmission, population-level impact or a complete incidence picture. The federal table is explicitly incomplete and is updated as reports arrive.

SOURCE

USDA APHIS
View original evidence ↗

EvidenceGovernment dataGeographyUnited StatesSystemWildlife, captive mammals and avian-influenza surveillance WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS USDA APHIS updated its mammal HPAI detections page on September 25. The table includes recent 2026 detections

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Institutional report North America

A New York cormorant vNDV case is a surveillance signal, not an outbreak

Evidence
Institutional / NGO report
Geography
New York, USA
System
Wildlife disease / One Health

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Cornell’s Animal Health Diagnostic Center reported a virulent Newcastle disease virus detection in an adult double-crested cormorant, with USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories confirming the virulent genotype using the fusion-protein cleavage-site sequence.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The detection is worth retaining as a One Health surveillance signal because wild birds can move pathogens across landscapes that also contain domestic poultry and rehabilitation or captive-bird facilities.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a single confirmed bird. It does not establish sustained transmission among wild birds, a poultry outbreak, or a population-level wildlife effect; the source is an institutional diagnostic report rather than peer-reviewed epidemiology.

SOURCE

Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine
View original evidence ↗

Cornell and USDA’s NVSL confirmed virulent Newcastle disease virus in one double-crested cormorant; the finding matters for wildlife–poultry surveillance, not as evidence of broader transmission.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Global

Emerging-disease geography has an anthropogenic fingerprint—but not one ecological driver

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Global; 169 countries
System
Human–animal disease landscapes / One Health

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers harmonized 58,319 outbreak events for 32 diseases and tested 16 social and environmental drivers while modeling reporting bias. Outbreak risk was often higher in forested, fragmented mosaic landscapes with people and livestock, and several vector-borne diseases shared strong responses to fragmentation and long-term drying. Directly transmitted zoonoses shared few consistent drivers. Reporting declined by a median 32% for each additional hour of travel time to a health facility.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The study weakens the search for one global ecological lever against emerging disease. Landscape intervention can matter, but prevention and surveillance need to be pathogen- and place-specific—and healthcare access is itself part of the observed disease map.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The analysis is observational and assembled from heterogeneous surveillance systems, with sparse data for several high-concern pathogens. Associations are not causal estimates for individual diseases, and under-detection remains a central limitation.

SOURCE

Nature
View original evidence ↗

A global analysis of 58,319 outbreak records finds shared landscape signals for several vector-borne diseases, while directly transmitted zoonoses show far less consistent environmental patterning.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Africa

Kenya’s One Health record shows research mattered when it was translated into disease-control policy

Evidence
Institutional synthesis
Geography
Kenya
System
Human–livestock–wildlife disease governance

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

An ILRI evidence-to-policy brief reviews a decade of Kenyan One Health research and partnerships and links that work to three national policy products: an anthrax control strategy, a human brucellosis testing strategy and a Rift Valley fever contingency plan. The emphasis is on the institutional work required to move evidence through agencies and into operational guidance.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Disease science does not become public policy automatically. The case is useful because it treats translation capacity—long-term relationships, cross-sector institutions and decision timing—as part of the evidence system rather than as communication added after research is finished.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is an institutional retrospective from an organization involved in the work, not an independent causal evaluation of policy effectiveness. The existence of a strategy does not demonstrate implementation quality or improved disease outcomes.

SOURCE

International Livestock Research Institute
View original evidence ↗

An ILRI retrospective traces how sustained research partnerships contributed to national strategies for anthrax, brucellosis and Rift Valley fever.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Africa

South Africa’s invasive Tarebia snails point to one globally successful lineage—but one marker cannot reconstruct the invasion

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
South Africa, with comparison to the species’ global invasive range
System
Freshwater invasive-snail populations and parasite-host networks

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Genetic analysis of invasive Tarebia granifera in South Africa found the sampled haplotypes nested within a major invasive lineage also represented elsewhere in the species’ introduced range. The low diversity observed in South Africa is consistent with a limited founding history followed by expansion, while the species’ role as an intermediate host for trematodes adds a disease-ecology dimension to its spread.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

For invasion surveillance, lineage information can help distinguish repeated introductions from expansion after establishment and can identify whether pathogen-host concerns are traveling with a widespread invasive lineage.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The study relies heavily on a single mitochondrial marker, which is useful for broad lineage assignment but weak for fine-scale reconstruction of introduction number, source population or dispersal route. Disease risk was not measured as a direct outbreak outcome.

SOURCE

Aquatic Sciences
View original evidence ↗

Mitochondrial evidence places South African Tarebia granifera within the same major invasive lineage found elsewhere, consistent with rapid expansion from limited introductions.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Government data

Australia’s H5N1 response is entering a multi-species wildlife phase

Evidence
Government data
Geography
Australia
System
Wild birds, marine mammals and terrestrial wildlife disease surveillance

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Australia's national bird-flu surveillance dashboard reported 583 confirmed H5 wildlife events as of September 18, with detections spread across multiple states and territories. Separate expert reporting on the Australian response has documented spillover detections in mammalian wildlife, including seals and other species, while authorities have not reported sustained mammal-to-mammal transmission.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Worth keeping in the back of your mind because the management problem is shifting from an avian outbreak to a broader wildlife-interface surveillance challenge. The useful next evidence will be whether mammalian infections remain independent spillovers, which species and places become recurrent, and how carcass, rehabilitation and biosecurity systems adapt.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

A reported 'event' is not the same as an individual infected animal, and testing intensity changes after an outbreak becomes established. Mammalian detection does not imply mammal-to-mammal transmission, and current surveillance counts should not be read as a population-impact estimate.

SOURCE

Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
View original evidence ↗

Global Virus Network · Expert statement
View supporting source ↗

National surveillance had recorded 583 confirmed wildlife H5 events by September 18, while detections in several mammal species are widening the ecological questions even without evidence of sustained mammal-to-mammal transmission.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Global

Wildlife imports track some dimensions of zoonotic outbreak risk—but not all of them

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Global country-level analysis, 1975–2013
System
Wildlife trade and zoonotic emerging infectious disease

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A One Health study combined international wildlife-trade data with country-level zoonotic emerging-infectious-disease records from 1975–2013 using spatiotemporal Bayesian and extreme-value models. Greater wildlife import volume was associated with a higher probability that a zoonotic emerging-disease event occurred and with the risk of extreme outbreaks, but it was not associated with the frequency of events once occurrence was established. Export volume showed weaker or nonsignificant relationships across the same outcomes.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The result is useful because it separates different parts of disease risk instead of collapsing them into one 'trade causes outbreaks' claim. Surveillance, border biosecurity and risk assessment may need to distinguish introduction opportunity, outbreak probability and outbreak magnitude—and account for reporting capacity at the same time.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is historical observational analysis at the country scale. Trade volume is an aggregate proxy rather than a mechanistic exposure pathway, surveillance and reporting differ among countries, and the associations do not establish that a particular shipment or taxon caused a disease event.

SOURCE

One Health
View original evidence ↗

A multi-country analysis finds greater wildlife import volume associated with the probability of zoonotic emerging-disease occurrence and extreme outbreaks, while effects on outbreak frequency were not detected.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed North America

CWD experts put audience understanding ahead of another technical prescription

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
United States
System
Cervid disease management

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Twenty-four representatives from 18 state, tribal, federal and nongovernmental organizations generated 50 possible interventions and grouped them into 12 themes. Audience understanding, outreach and engagement received the most priority votes, ahead of active deer-population management and interagency coordination, and the authors used the results to build a theory of change.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Wildlife disease management can fail at the implementation layer even when the biological problem is well characterized. The exercise puts trust, audience segmentation and behavior alongside surveillance and population tools rather than treating communication as an afterthought.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is expert elicitation and a decision framework, not a field trial showing that engagement reduces CWD prevalence. Workshops occurred in 2022, priorities reflect the participating organizations, and causal links in the theory of change remain to be tested.

SOURCE

Journal of Wildlife Management
View original evidence ↗

A structured elicitation of 24 chronic-wasting-disease practitioners ranked public understanding, outreach and engagement as the highest-priority intervention theme.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Europe

For Europe’s salamander fungus, diversity and density are telling different stories

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Germany and Spain
System
Amphibian communities exposed to Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A multi-site synthesis assembled 2,625 amphibians from Bsal-positive locations spanning 14 species. Across infected communities, Bsal prevalence was negatively associated with host-species richness and positively associated with total amphibian abundance. In fire salamanders alone, abundance instead tracked lower prevalence, a pattern the authors interpret cautiously because disease-caused mortality can itself lower host density.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Disease ecology can invert the meaning of a familiar metric. Richness may be associated with lower pathogen prevalence, but abundance can be both a driver and a consequence of disease; management should avoid translating a cross-site 'dilution' pattern into a simple diversity prescription without resolving mechanism.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The analysis compiles heterogeneous observational datasets and is dominated by German sites. The fire-salamander richness-by-density interaction was not statistically significant, and infected-site sampling, life stage and mortality can bias apparent prevalence relationships. This does not demonstrate a diversity intervention that controls Bsal.

SOURCE

Journal of Applied Ecology
View original evidence ↗

Across Bsal-positive European sites, infection prevalence fell as amphibian richness rose, while fire salamanders showed a reversed density relationship consistent with disease-driven population loss.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed

Coral probiotics may be changing more than the microbiome

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Controlled coral experiment led at KAUST, Saudi Arabia
System
Pocillopora verrucosa coral holobiont under pathogen and heat stress

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

In Nature Communications, researchers inoculated Pocillopora verrucosa fragments with the pathogen Vibrio coralliilyticus, a putative probiotic Cobetia strain, both or neither, then exposed them to heat stress. Pathogen exposure produced distinct DNA-methylation changes; probiotic co-inoculation mitigated some of those changes, and those responses correlated with greater stress resilience and survival.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

If microbiome interventions can reproducibly alter host regulatory state, coral probiotics could eventually be more than short-lived microbial supplementation. That would widen the mechanism by which assisted resilience might operate—but this is exactly the kind of early mechanistic signal that needs replication before it becomes restoration practice.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This was a controlled experiment on one coral species and specific bacterial strains. Epigenetic correlation does not establish durable transgenerational benefit, field effectiveness or ecological safety, and the authors note that many mechanistic questions remain unresolved.

SOURCE

Nature Communications
View original evidence ↗

A controlled experiment found that bacterial inoculation altered coral DNA methylation under heat stress, with a probiotic mitigating some pathogen-associated epigenetic changes and correlating with higher survival.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Europe

After 20 years, cropping system mattered more for soil condition than simply cutting inputs

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Northern Italy
System
Long-term agricultural cropping systems and soils

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A 20-year experiment compared six cropping systems under standard and reduced-input management. Soil organic matter, aggregate stability and nematode community indicators differed strongly among cropping systems, with permanent grassland performing well on several soil-health measures. Continuous maize could support high nematode abundance while showing lower maturity or richness, and input level was generally less explanatory than cropping-system identity. Standard-input treatments produced higher mean yields, while reduced-input treatments showed smaller year-to-year fluctuations in some comparisons.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The counter-signal is against managing soil health as a single input-reduction dial. Rotation, perennial cover and the ecological structure of the production system can matter more than whether the same system is simply run with fewer inputs.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The experiment does not show that fertilizer, pesticide or tillage reductions are unimportant, nor that permanent grassland can substitute for crop production. Soil indicators, yields and management objectives can trade off, and results reflect the soils and climate of one long-term Italian experiment.

SOURCE

Biodiversity and Conservation · Original evidence
View original evidence ↗

A long-term Italian experiment found permanent grassland strongest on several soil-health indicators, rotations strongest on some productivity measures, and reduced inputs less decisive than the system they were applied to.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Asia

African swine fever has become a biodiversity crisis for Asia’s endemic wild pigs

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Asia, focused on endemic wild suids
System
Wild suids and wildlife–livestock disease interfaces

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A conservation roadmap synthesizes the spread and impacts of African swine fever across Asia’s endemic wild pigs. Confirmed infection has been documented in at least four endemic species and is suspected in two more, with severe population declines contributing to recent conservation-status concerns and uplistings. The roadmap calls for coordinated wildlife surveillance, livestock-interface management, contingency ex-situ conservation, sustained financing and vaccine research.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

A livestock pathogen can become a biodiversity threat when spillover reaches small, fragmented wildlife populations. That pushes disease management beyond veterinary containment: conservation status, protected-area surveillance, farm biosecurity and species-recovery planning become parts of the same One Health problem.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a roadmap and evidence synthesis, not an experiment estimating one uniform mortality rate. Surveillance intensity varies among species and countries, and suspected infections should not be treated as confirmed disease events.

SOURCE

Nature Reviews Biodiversity · Roadmap / synthesis
View original evidence ↗

A new conservation roadmap says disease-driven collapses now threaten several suid species and require wildlife surveillance, livestock-interface controls, ex-situ planning and vaccine research to move together.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed

Lamprey viromes found two divergent coronaviruses—but detection is not yet a disease diagnosis

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Mataura River, New Zealand, and Tasmania, Australia
System
Migratory lamprey and freshwater disease ecology

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Sequencing of 28 pouched lamprey identified eight fish-infecting RNA viruses, seven apparently novel, including two divergent coronaviruses. Fish showing reddening syndrome carried greater total viral abundance than healthy fish, but several viruses also occurred in fish without the syndrome, coronavirus abundance varied strongly by sampling location, and the study did not establish a single causal agent. The research was developed with Indigenous guardians of kanakana in New Zealand.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Pathogen discovery is most useful when it narrows hypotheses without turning correlation into diagnosis. For wildlife health, metagenomic surveillance can reveal previously invisible viral diversity and guide targeted follow-up, but disease attribution still requires pathology, experimental or epidemiological evidence beyond sequence detection.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The sample was small and uneven across health states and locations, and metatranscriptomic abundance does not prove infection is causing clinical signs. The work identifies candidates and associations, not the etiology of lamprey reddening syndrome.

SOURCE

Journal of Virology · Original evidence
View original evidence ↗

Metatranscriptomic work in New Zealand and Tasmania expands the known fish-virus landscape while keeping the cause of lamprey reddening syndrome unresolved.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Africa

Warmer host conditions can select for more virulent parasites over just ten passages

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Cabo Verde isolate; laboratory host–parasite system
System
Experimental host–parasite system

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers experimentally evolved the bacterial parasite Leucobacter musarum for ten passages in Caenorhabditis elegans across 20–35°C. At 25°C, host-mediated selection favored higher virulence and genomic diversification; parasites evolved at hotter temperatures maintained virulence and showed a latent increase in lethality when hosts later experienced heatwave conditions.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The weak signal is evolutionary: climate stress may alter not only disease exposure or transmission but also which parasite traits are selected. If similar dynamics occur in natural systems, temperature could change pathogen evolution on management-relevant timescales.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a short laboratory experimental-evolution study using one bacterium–nematode system. It does not establish that warming generally increases virulence in wildlife, livestock or human pathogens in the field.

SOURCE

Global Change Biology · Original evidence
View original evidence ↗

A short experimental-evolution study found temperature left both phenotypic and genomic signatures on a bacterial parasite—but this remains a laboratory warning signal, not a field forecast.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Africa

Mangroves and malaria move in opposite directions depending on what “more mangrove” means

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Coastal settlements across 27 African countries
System
Mangrove and coastal socio-ecological systems

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers combined 11 years of malaria prevalence records with satellite-derived mangrove cover, vegetation greenness and weather data across 27 African countries. At coarse spatial resolution, greater mangrove land cover was associated with lower malaria prevalence; at both fine and coarse scales, greater mangrove greenness was associated with higher prevalence.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The result breaks the simplistic argument that mangroves are either disease-promoting mosquito habitat or automatically health-protective ecosystems. Disease risk depends on forest configuration, vegetation condition, vectors, hosts and scale, so conservation and public-health management need to be designed together.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a continent-wide observational analysis using structural-equation models, not experimental evidence that changing mangrove extent or greenness will cause a particular malaria outcome. Mechanisms, vector species and local contexts vary substantially.

SOURCE

Global Change Biology · Original evidence
View original evidence ↗

Across 27 African countries, greater mangrove extent correlated with lower malaria prevalence while greener vegetation correlated with higher prevalence—an explicitly observational, scale-sensitive result.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Asia

Qinghai–Tibet Plateau — Permafrost degradation is reorganizing microbiomes unevenly by depth

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Qinghai–Tibet Plateau
System
Alpine permafrost soils

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Metagenomic analysis of 150 samples from six 15-metre permafrost cores found microbial and functional diversity declining with depth, while degradation reduced diversity mainly in the active layer. Viral groups and virulence-associated genes were enriched in the frozen fringe, and carbon- and nitrogen-cycling gene patterns shifted with hydrothermal conditions.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Permafrost change is vertically structured. Surface sampling alone may miss microbial and biogeochemical changes concentrated at thaw boundaries that could affect nutrient loss and downstream ecosystem function.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Gene presence indicates functional or virulence potential, not demonstrated pathogen emergence or disease risk. The study should not be read as evidence of an imminent public-health threat.

SOURCE

Nature Communications · Original evidence
View original evidence ↗

Metagenomes from 15-metre cores show active, frozen-fringe and frozen layers responding differently to degradation.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Institutional report

One Health — Biodiversity is moving closer to the center of formal health-policy discussions

Evidence
Institutional programme
Geography
Lisbon; international policy discussion
System
Biodiversity and health

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Biodiversity is moving closer to the center of formal health-policy discussions. At the World One Health Congress in Lisbon, UNEP hosted a session specifically examining biodiversity action as a One Health intervention and chaired work on climate, environment and ecosystem health.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Whether this becomes operational policy rather than conference language is worth monitoring.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

A programme demonstrates institutional attention, not evidence that a policy intervention has improved health or biodiversity.

SOURCE

UNEP · official One Health Congress programme
View original evidence ↗

At the World One Health Congress in Lisbon, UNEP hosted a session specifically examining biodiversity action as a One Health intervention and chaired work on climate, environment and ecosystem health. Whether this becomes operational policy rather than conference language is worth monitoring.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Europe Peer-reviewed

Europe — Wildlife-disease control zones may need to follow movement ecology rather than administrative defaults

Geography
Europe
Evidence
Peer-reviewed modeling study
System
Wildlife disease / working landscapes

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Wildlife-disease control zones may need to follow movement ecology rather than administrative defaults. Modeling of African swine fever and wild-boar movement suggests an 8 km infectious buffer can reduce dispersal risk, but highly heterogeneous or heavily human-modified landscapes may permit smaller zones while agricultural landscapes may require larger ones.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Disease zoning is an ecological design problem. Movement and landscape structure can provide a stronger basis for buffer size than a uniform administrative boundary.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

These are movement-informed model estimates, not experimentally validated universal buffer distances. Local landscape conditions and outbreak dynamics still matter.

SOURCE

Journal of Applied Ecology · Wielgus et al. · 2026
View original evidence ↗

Modeling of African swine fever and wild-boar movement suggests an 8 km infectious buffer can reduce dispersal risk, but highly heterogeneous or heavily human-modified landscapes may permit smaller zones while agricultural landscapes may require larger ones.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed Africa Coastal

Mangroves and malaria are producing a much stranger relationship than the historical narrative suggests

Evidence
Peer-reviewed multi-country observational study
Geography
Coastal settlements in 27 African countries
System
Mangroves
Study scope
27 countries
Records
11 years of malaria prevalence records

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers combined 11 years of malaria prevalence records with satellite-derived mangrove, vegetation and weather data. Historically, mangroves were often treated as mosquito habitat and in some places cleared partly on that logic. The new analysis found a negative association between malaria prevalence and mangrove extent, while greater mangrove “greenness” could show a positive relationship depending on scale and analytical pathway.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

That apparent contradiction is the point. “Mangroves” are not one exposure variable. Forest extent, vegetation condition, hydrology, mosquito ecology, settlement patterns and scale can interact differently. This is a strong One Health warning against ecological interventions built on simple causal stories such as “wetland = mosquitoes = disease.”

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The authors are analyzing associations, not proving that conserving mangroves reduces malaria. Confounding human and environmental variables remain possible.

SOURCE

Global Change Biology · Original evidence
View original evidence ↗

The new analysis found a negative association between malaria prevalence and mangrove extent, while greater mangrove “greenness” could show a positive relationship depending on scale and analytical pathway.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →

Keep exploring

Follow the systems. Find the connections.

WildlifeLandWaterOceansClimateCitiesOne HealthGovernanceMethods / Monitoring
Browse the archive →