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CARMA – Rangifer Health

CARMA project brings together scientists, First Nations, and wildlife managers to study caribou health. The initiative aims to compile traditional and scientific knowledge for informed management and policy decisions. This project has sampled caribou populations to analyze body condition, pathogens, and more, revealing new findings about health and biodiversity. By assessing pathogen distribution and drivers of health, CARMA seeks to enhance predictive capacities to ensure the well-being of barren-ground caribou.

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CARMA – Rangifer Health

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  1. CARMA – Rangifer Health Inventory and Beyond Susan Kutz, Ryan Brook, Pat Curry, Julie duCrocq and Danna Schock A big thanks to Dean Brown

  2. Bottom Line • “ensure barren-ground caribou continue to use their ranges and remain an important aspect of the lives of NWT residents.” Caribou Forever GNWT

  3. CARMA IPY • Bring together a network of biological, social, and physical scientists, First Nations peoples, wildlife managers, and others, to examine the health and vulnerability of Rangifer species around the Arctic • Opportunity to compile historical and existing traditional and scientific knowledge and generate new knowledge to inform management and policy

  4. Overview of CARMA Collections • N=649 caribou sampled from 2004-2009 from 8 herds: • Ahiak (n=36) • Akia-Maniitsoq population Greenland (n=41) • Bathurst (n=150) • Beverly/Qaminirjuaq (n=56) • Bluenose East (n=65) • Bluenose West (n=51) • George (n=116) • Leaf (n=118) • Porcupine (n=15) • Adults (79%), Calves (19%), Yearlings (2%) • Males (37%), Females (63%) • Body condition, pregnancy, body size and composition, pathogens

  5. Inventory - Biodiversity • Essential first step to understanding the role of pathogens in • Rangifer individual and herd health • human health (zoonotic diseases) • ecosystem health (spillover to sympatric species) If you don’t know the wolves are there you can’t understand how they are affecting the population

  6. Preliminary findings – Biodiversity new and varied across populations • Mycobacterium aviumparatuberculosis(Map, or Johnes disease), in Akia-Maniitsoq caribou, Greenland (Orsel and Cuyler) • Free-ranging Rangifer susceptible • Spill-over from domestics? • Increased diversity of gastrointestinal nematodes in Greenland and Labrador • Spill-over from domestics? • Different sympatric species and recent evolutionary history • Significance in health of populations? • Trypanosoma genotypes (Schock) • Hidden diversity – multiple genotypes in Canada, only one genotype in Greenland.

  7. Inventory - Distribution of Pathogens within Herds • Knowing how parasites are distributed within a population is essential for understanding transmission dynamics and population level impact

  8. Inventory - Distribution within Herds

  9. Inventory - Distribution within Herds

  10. Distribution Across Seasons • Provides information on • When pathogen may have an impact • When to sample • When transmission occurs

  11. Inventory – Establish Normal (?) Status and Variability among Individuals

  12. Inventory – Establish Normal (?) Status and Variability among Herds

  13. Caribou, Southampton Island

  14. Brucella suis and Pregnancy • A compelling case for inventory and monitoring

  15. Beyond Inventory - Comparison across herds • Compare parasites vs disease, herd trajectory, climate, density, demographics, sympatric species, etc.

  16. Herd Comparisons

  17. Herd Comparisons • These analyses provide insight into what to focus on, where are the key differences, what sort of patterns are present. • However, • Correlational • If we look at a herd at its low, expect very low pathogen abundance – few interesting pathogen events

  18. What does this mean to the herds? How can it inform management? • Move beyond correlational to predictive. • How do pathogens impact individuals?

  19. How do pathogens impact individuals?

  20. Approach • IPY collections – can analyze pathogens relative to body condition etc. • Interpretation limited because • Cross-sectional study • Lag effects • Seroprevalence =exposure, not disease • Some correlations will be biologically valid • Longitudinal and manipulative studies can provide insight (Svalbard, Red Grouse) • Experimental approach

  21. The Health Continuum - Time 0

  22. The Health Continuum – Time 1 - Environmental Change

  23. The Health Continuum – Severe weather event

  24. Drivers of Health What is the relative contribution of these drivers? Are there drivers that we are missing? Are we incorporating known drivers into our existing models?

  25. Drivers of Health How do they interact? How to move to a more integrative, predictive framework?

  26. What is ‘Normal’? • Under what biotic and abiotic conditions do Rangifersurvive? • Under what conditions do they thrive? • What is acceptable variability?

  27. CARMA as a network – provides the medium to mobilize our diverse knowledge, expertise and resources, cross disciplinary boundaries, and develop enhanced predictive capacity

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