FARM FAIR
November 2015
East Oregonian/Hermiston Herald
Page 7
OSU to
study how
diseases
become
epidemics
By GAIL WELLS
Oregon State University
CORVALLIS — An
Oregon State University
scientist is heading a multi-
national team studying how
to anticipate and curb the
next disease outbreak before
it blows up into a global
epidemic.
Funded by a new $2.5
million grant, OSU plant
pathologist
Christopher
Mundt and his team are
probing infectious diseases of
humans, animals and plants
that have a distinctive trait
in common: the capability
of the pathogen – whether
virus, fungus or bacterium
— to transmit itself over long
distances. This pattern, he
said, characterizes diseases
like avian Àu, which have
produced continental-scale
epidemics.
“Our goal is to develop
rules of thumb for identifying
and controlling diseases
that have this long-distance
dispersal capability,” said
Mundt. “We don’t have
the scienti¿c manpower to
create detailed models of
every potential epidemic. So
a generalized set of control
strategies would be vital in
policy planning during the
early stages of an outbreak.”
Mundt, a professor in
OSU’s College of Agricul-
tural Sciences, is partnering
with scientists from Kansas
State University, North Caro-
lina State University and two
universities in England on
the ¿ve-year proMect, which
is being funded by several
organizations.
As people and patho-
gens move freely around a
warming world, pandemic
diseases
increasingly
threaten public health and
global economies, according
to the National Science
Foundation, one of the proM-
ect’s funding agencies. The
World Health Organization
calls
infectious-disease
epidemics “contemporary
health catastrophes.”
For 15 years Mundt and
his OSU colleagues have
been studying stripe rust, a
fast-spreading fungal disease
that damages wheat, in
experiments on commercial
farms in central Oregon’s
Jefferson County.
The new study will incor-
porate ¿ndings from this
ongoing work. Mundt and
his team will also analyze
data from two real-life 2001
epidemics: foot-and-mouth
disease in Britain, caused
by a virus; and sudden oak
death, which started in Cali-
fornia and spread to southern
Oregon. That disease is trans-
mitted by a water mold called
Phytophthora ramorum.
The researchers will also
study historical outbreaks
of animal and human viral
diseases spread by insects,
such as West Nile, Rift
Valley fever and Japanese
encephalitis. Finally, they
will use modeling and ¿eld
experiments to test strategies
for controlling epidemics,
including vaccination, drug
therapy, quarantines, and
eradicating of host organisms
around centers of infection.
Pathogens that can disperse
over long distances are dubbed
“fat-tailed” organisms, said
Mundt — a reference to the
shape of their spread pattern
on a graph. A fat-tailed curve,
he explained, looks like a hill
with a long tapering slope
off to the right. The taper
represents the rapid movement
of the disease “front” through
space over time.
In contrast, the curve of a
slower disease, like measles,
looks more like a hill without
the tapering slope. The down-
hill plunge represents the
disease’s decline with distance
at a constant, linear rate.
It’s been assumed, Mundt
said, that most epidemics
follow the same linear
pattern as measles. “But that
wasn’t what I was seeing in
my stripe-rust experiments.”
Instead,
the
outbreaks
accelerated as they pushed
out from the epicenter, and
the larger the initial infection
site, the faster the accelera-
tion rate.
Courtesy of Oregon State University
Oregon State University scientist David Wooster takes samples of insect populations from streams flowing past Eastern Oregon wheat
fields.
Bugs help researchers study stream health
By JOHN O’CONNELL
EO Media Group
BOISE — Researchers with the Idaho Depart-
ment of Environmental Quality and Oregon State
University say analyzing insect populations is
often the best way to assess water quality, and the
data can create opportunities for agricultural land
owners.
IDEQ regional water quality manager Lynn
Van Every served on a committee that recently
published an updated technical document to help
guide the department’s water-quality analysis of
Idaho waterways, based on aquatic invertebrates.
Van Every explained the department assessed
roughly 100 stream reaches known to be healthy
for a picture of fully functioning waterways and
will use the document to compare insect life
within water bodies statewide. While water
samples provide a snapshot of water quality,
insects offer a long-term look at health.
The new publication is the third revision of the
technical document analyzing aquatic invertebrate
populations. The original version was released in
the late 1990s. Van Every said the document will
undergo a public comment period and should be
available for use some time next year.
“It’s directly associated with implementing
best-management practices to address streams
that are impaired,” Van Every said.
Implementation of proMects aimed at improving
water quality are voluntary for farmers and
ranchers. Van Every said IDEQ often works with
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service
or local soil and water conservation districts to
design and implement cooperative, incentivized
water-quality proMects on agricultural land, such
as buffer strips along ¿eld edges by streams,
cattle fencing or off-site watering.
Van Every said IDEQ is in the midst of
analyzing how aquatic life in Pebble Creek
— which Àows through agricultural land near
Lava Hot Springs — has responded to a recent
restoration of original channels.
OSU researchers Sandra DeBano and Dave
Wooster have extensively studied agricultural
buffers and their affects on aquatic invertebrates.
Generally, Wooster said, healthy streams are
rich in desirable aquatic insects such as caddis-
Àies, mayÀies and stoneÀies. The absences of
those insects, and often the presence of midges
or segmented worms, bodes ill for stream health,
he said.
The OSU researchers’ positions were created
about 15 years ago, when Eastern Oregon
farmers were concerned about potential farm
buffer zone requirements, similar to those in
place along streams in Western Oregon forest
land, to protect salmon. They’ve found the
length of buffer zones they studied in Eastern
Oregon is more important to water quality than
width. Furthermore, data collected in 2012 and
2013 from Conservation Reserve Enhancement
Program buffers along Eastern Oregon wheat
¿elds shows the width of buffers is more critical
than the type of vegetation. The data, which is
still being analyzed and awaits publication, ¿nds
little difference in water quality between grass or
forested buffers.
“If you have limited money and limited land,
probably the most important thing to do is focus
on having a continuous buffer, regardless of
width,” DeBano said. “And if you have more
money or time, then you may focus more on
increasing width.”
The researchers also used aquatic insects to
assess streams for the Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reservation, and they’re part-
nering with the tribes to assess the effectiveness
of a recent restoration proMect, removing cattle
ponds on Camp Creek near Enterprise.
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