Biology subjects

Sack, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Sack, A..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Rice-Fish Co-Culturing for Sustainability, Food Security, and Disease and Poverty Reduction

Over 140 million households cultivate rice worldwide. However, rice production contributes to exceedances of planetary boundaries, such as freshwater use and biogeochemical flows. Additionally, rice-farming families may face increased risk of acquiring schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease transmitted by freshwater snails that contributes to reinforcing cycles of poverty and disease. Using data from 405 households in rural Senegal, we show that children in rice-farming households had higher Schistosoma mansoni prevalence and S. haematobium intensities than non-farming peers. To address this environmental-health challenge, we integrated native Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and African Bonytongue (Heterotis niloticus) into rice fields. The fish thrived, suppressed insects and snail pests, improved soil nutrients, and boosted rice yields by >25% with a net benefit of 1,805-3,415 USD/ha/year (benefit-to-cost ratio = 7.42). Hence, low-input rice-fish co-culturing offers a scalable planetary health solution that simultaneously advances sustainability, nutrition, health, and rural livelihoods. ResumePlus de 140 millions de foyers a travers le monde cultivent du riz. Cependant, cette production exerce une pression importante sur les ressources naturelles, notamment les reserves deau douce. Par ailleurs, les menages pratiquant la riziculture peuvent etre plus exposes au risq ue de bilharziose, une maladie parasitaire transmise par des escargots deau douce, qui contribue au cycle de pauvrete. A partir de donnees collectees aupres de 405 menages dans des villages senegalais, nous montrons que les enfants issus de familles pratiquant la riziculture presentent une prevalence plus elevee dinfection a Shistosoma mansoni et des intensites dinfection a S. haematobium plus importantes que ceux issues de familles ne cultivant pas le riz. Pour remedier a cela, nous avons integre deux especes locales de poissons, le tilapia du Nil (Oreochromis niloticus) et lHeterotis (Heterotis niloticus), dans les rizieres, afin de reduire les population descargots hotes, ameliorer les rendements agricoles et augmenter les revenus. Ces poissons ont montre une bonne croissance, ont contribue a la regulation des insectes et des escargots nuisibles, ont enrichi le sol en nutriments, et accru les rendements rizicoles de plus de 25%, avec un benefice net estime entre 1 805 et 3 415 USD/ha/an (ratio benefice-cout = 7,42). Ainsi, la co-culture riz-poisson a faibles intrants constitue une solution reproductible en faveur de la sante publique, permettant de concilier durabilite, nutrition et amelioration des moyens de subsistance en milieu rural.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Generalizing animal movement predictions across landscapes: a scalable framework grounded in empirical telemetry data

BackgroundUnderstanding animal movement across broad ecological contexts is essential for guiding management decisions in natural resource and animal disease management. However, most movement studies collect data over small spatial extents, which challenges using the data for landscape-scale management applications. MethodsWe collated relocation data from 564 wild pigs spanning 25 studies across 10 states in the United States. We derived net and daily displacement distributions for individuals in each of 4 seasons. We fit gamma distributions to displacement distributions and derived mean and dispersion parameters as metrics of displacement magnitude and variation. We modeled mean and dispersion variables using gradient-boosted regression, including landscape and weather predictors, and predicted daily and net displacement distributions across the species range. We used integrated step selection analysis to estimate habitat selection for wild pig groups sharing a common composition of habitat availability across the studied populations. ResultsFemale average ({+/-} 95% confidence interval) net displacement means varied by season, peaking in Jul-Sept at 1,152 {+/-} 140 m along with daily displacement mean distances of 650 {+/-} 41 m. Average net displacement means for males peaked in Oct.-Dec. at 1,651 {+/-} 160 m with daily displacement mean distances of 1,092 {+/-} 95 m. Extreme net displacement values ranged up to 9,649 m and 4,080 m for male and female, respectively, and extreme daily displacement distribution means of 6,616 m for males, and 3,855 m for females. Almost half of the individuals included a similar composition of habitat availability, regardless of study site location. Herbaceous wetland was the most consistently favored land type and was available for more than 70% of all individual pigs across all studies. Preference for other land types depended strongly on habitat availability. ConclusionsBy comparing movement and habitat selection across a large geographic extent, our work provides new insights about the environmental drivers and limits of wild pig movement behavior. Our workflow digests variation wild pig movement distributions and habitat selection into parameters that can be used to predict movement on heterogeneous landscapes for downstream applications such as invasive species elimination campaigns or disease management.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2022

Global change drivers and the risk of infectious disease

Anthropogenic change is contributing to the rise in emerging infectious diseases, but it remains unclear which global change drivers most increase disease and under what contexts. We amassed a dataset from the literature that includes 1,832 observations of infectious disease responses to global change drivers across 1,202 host-parasite combinations. We found that biodiversity loss, climate change, and introduced species were associated with increases in disease-related endpoints or harm (i.e., enemy release for introduced species), whereas urbanization was associated with decreases in disease endpoints. Natural biodiversity gradients, deforestation, forest fragmentation, and most classes of chemical contaminants had non-significant effects on these endpoints. Overall, these results were consistent across human and non-human diseases. Context-dependent effects of the global change drivers on disease were common and are discussed. These findings will help better target disease management and surveillance efforts towards global change drivers that increase disease. One-Sentence SummaryHere we quantify which global change drivers increase infectious diseases the most to better target global disease management and surveillance efforts.

ecology↗