The virus-mediated disease Rift Valley fever (RVF) was discovered during an outbreak in Kenya in the 1930s. Since then it has spread to most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, and in the last decades several outbreaks have caused economic and health issues in Africa, Yemen and Saudi-Arabia. The disease mainly affects domestic livestock, causing abortions, but is also a zoonosis. To be able to control the spread of the disease it is important with surveillance for better knowledge about the distribution and virus circulation even in inter-epidemic/epizootic periods. The human population is growing, and people and their livestock constantly move closer to areas with wild animals which act as reservoirs for different viruses. Also, humans and their animals often get within reach for arthropod vectors, hosting or carrying viruses.

Stem rust, Puccinia graminis, has caused enormous yield losses throughout history which have had significant consequences for oat and wheat production. Today in Sweden stem rust is only reported from rye, oats and wild grasses. Stem rust infections in wheat have become unusual due to the general use of resistant wheat varieties and also due to the eradication of barberry, Berberis vulgaris, the alternate host for P. graminis. According to international sources, new races of P.

The tick-borne disease bovine anaplasmosis is primarily caused by Anaplasma marginale. A variety of wild animals act as reservoirs for A. marginale, but the understanding of their role in the epidemiology of A. marginale is yet poor. This cross-sectional study was conducted to establish if proximity of wildlife affect the prevalence of bovine anaplasmosis in cattle.

This bachelor-level thesis in historical osteology deals with several aspects of the life-cycle of an RomanIron Age farm in southern Scania. Excavated in the 1980's by Lars Larsson, the farm was located near aplace called Långåker in the Dybäck area, on a cape which stretched out into a minor bog. Our work concerns why the Iron Age people settled the area, how well fragmented bone survives in a bog, what they produced at the farm and how life on the farm finally ended. From the roughly 10 % of the total number of fragments we where able to identify we can conclude, that he species that are present of the farm areusual Iron Age species (dog, sheep/goat, cattle and swine). We also have a relitivly large number of wildanimals in our material (2%).

The quest to determine if non-human animals have emotional lives similar to man goes a long way back and is yet to result in a clear answer. The aim of this particular literature study is to determine whether or not the African elephant may host feelings of empathy and display altruistic behaviour. In search for an answer to this question, scientists have chosen to first evaluate the cognitive abilities of said species. They have done this through the testing of tool use, mirror self-recognition, memory and the ability to coordinate with another when performing a task etc. It is generally thought, that in order for complex emotion to exist within an individual, cognition, as an awareness of the self and others, must first be present.

The life cycle of the anadromous Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) can span large geographic, political, and socio-economic boundaries. Management strategies and regulations that only concentrate on small spatial scales often overlook larger basin-wide problems, especially relating to post-spawn seaward migration. In this master thesis one entire migration cycle of wild adult Atlantic salmon in the unregulated northern Swedish river Vindelälven was monitored by radio-telemetry tracking during upstream spawning migration and downstream seaward migration back to the Baltic Sea. The effect of ladder passage variables (time to pass, total time in the ladder, passage day over the ladder) at a fish ladder downstream in the river Umeälven, as well as fish size, were evaluated to determine if differences in upstream migration distance in the river Vindelälven could be observed. Ladder passage variables did not affect migration distance, but size exhibited a negative relationship to migration distance.

During the 1960´s and 1970´s the number of grey seals in the Baltic Sea was decreasing rapidly, mostly due to hunting and toxic substances like DDT and PCB. When hunting became less intense and toxic substances decreased in the environment the grey seal population started to increase. Today grey seals are found common in the Baltic Sea and have started to become a big treat and a problem to the fishing industry. The grey seal destroys and enters fishing traps and consumes large quantities of the fish that have been caught.The knowledge of the grey seal, like abundance and food preferences, is today limited. It is also important to define the position of the grey seal in the ecosystem in the Baltic Sea and to be able to predict changes that could occur if the population would rapidly decrease or increase.

During the 1960´s and 1970´s the number of grey seals in the Baltic Sea was decreasing rapidly, mostly due to hunting and toxic substances like DDT and PCB. When hunting became less intense and toxic substances decreased in the environment the grey seal population started to increase. Today grey seals are found common in the Baltic Sea and have started to become a big treat and a problem to the fishing industry. The grey seal destroys and enters fishing traps and consumes large quantities of the fish that have been caught.The knowledge of the grey seal, like abundance and food preferences, is today limited. It is also important to define the position of the grey seal in the ecosystem in the Baltic Sea and to be able to predict changes that could occur if the population would rapidly decrease or increase.

Wildlife is a valuable and renewable resource that promotes economical, ecological and social values. These values are important for developing and maintaining many rural societies. However, growing ungulate populations have led to increased browsing pressure on valuable forest trees and crops. Previous studies have proposed supplementary feeding and gamefields as potential methods for controlling the ungulate foraging and reducing browsing damage by providing other attractive food resources. However, quantitative estimates of potential biomass production of various gamefield crops and browsing pressure on the surrounding forest have been lacking.

Horse owner?s knowledge about horse feeding and nutrition is directly linked to the horse?s health and welfare. According to several studies, both Swedish and foreign, horse owners generally have inadequate knowledge about horse feeding. The housing systems and feeding routines of today differs in many ways from what horses have adapted to through evolution. Wild horses live in harem herds and roam on large open fields, spending about 60 % of the day grazing, mainly grass and herbs.

The bacterium Lactobacillus reuteri, which natural habitat is in the intestine of mammals and birds, uses glycerol as a substrate for production of the antimicrobial compound reuterin. Glycerol has been shown to decrease the number of Escherichia coli in human feces and it is believed to be due to in situ production of reuterin. E. coli belongs to the large family of Enterobacteriaceae, naturally occurring in the intestine, and pathogenic strains of E. coli have been shown to be one of several bacteria causing diarrhoea in calves.

Under åren 1985 till 2005 har Gävle kommun kontrollmätt ett antal byggnaders grunder inom centrala Gävle med finavvägning. Syftet med dessa mätningar var att kontrollera eventuella sättningar och övervaka hur dessa utvecklades. Nu, 2011, upprepas några av mätningarna i detta examensarbete och syftet är att jämföra dem med kommunens tidigare mätningar. Examensarbetet resulterar även i att rutiner och metoder för fortsatta mätningar dokumenterades, punktskisser för de avvägda dubbarna upprättades och deras position lades i ett eget GIS-lager.Vid insamlandet av ny mätdata användes instrumentet Leica Wild NA3000 med invarstänger. Områdena (Berggrenska gården, Södra strandgatan och Norra skolan), avvägdes i slingor runt objekten som återanslöts till samma punkt.

ABSTRACT. In the late 1960?s all the wolves in Scandinavia went extinct in the wild due to extensive hunting. In 1983 two new wolves immigrated and founded, together with a third immigrant in 1991, the population that exists today. Due to the fact that the population originates from less than a handful of individuals, the genetic variation is small.

Toxoplasma gondii är en intracellulär, zoonotisk parasit med förmågan att infektera i stort sett alla varmblodiga vertebrater, medan endast kattdjur kan fungera som huvudvärd. Parasiten finns spridd hos människor och djur över hela världen. Vid symptomatisk infektion med T. gondii ses en varierande klinisk bild. Kongenitalt överförd smitta leder potentiellt till abort eller neonatal infektion.

Afrikansk svinpest är en av de allvarligaste grissjukdomarna och är på frammarsch i östra Europa. Under 2000-talet har det oerhört tåliga afrikanska svinpestviruset med hög morbiditet och mortalitet spridits från Afrika till Kaukasusregionen och angränsande europeiska länder där den utgör en stor risk för den globala grisindustrin. Sjukdomen är ingen zoonos men eftersom det saknas vaccin och behandling har den en stark påverkan på människor rent socialt och ekonomiskt när deras grisar drabbas. Sjukdomsutbrott leder till minskad internationell handel, kostsamma kontrollstrategier för att stoppa utbrott och stora förluster för småskaliga bönder. Syftet med denna litteraturstudie är att utvärdera huruvida europeiska vildsvin kan bli ett hot mot grisproduktionen i Sverige.