Journal article
Merging DNA typing and network analysis to assess the transmission of paratuberculosis between farms
N Marquetoux, C Heuer, P Wilson, A Ridler, M Stevenson
Preventive Veterinary Medicine | ELSEVIER | Published : 2016
Abstract
Paratuberculosis, a chronic enteric infection caused by Mycobacterium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP), is endemic in all farmed ruminant species in New Zealand. The use of genotyping in combination with network analysis of livestock movement events from one farm location to another has the potential to contribute to our understanding of between-farm transmission events. We studied a population of 122 farms from a corporate commercial livestock enterprise in New Zealand, trading with each other in near isolation from other commercial farms. The data consisted of longitudinal movements to and from these farms between 2006 and 2010, as well as the results of cross-sectional MAP screening and geno..
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Funding Acknowledgements
This study was partially funded by the New Zealand Johne's Disease Research Consortium and Landcorp Farming Ltd. and stipends were granted by Massey University and New Zealand International Doctoral Research Scholarship. We thank Gordon Williams from LC for access to the movement data, G. DeLisle and D. Collins (AgResearch NZ) for culture and strain typing, Marian Price-Carter (AgResearch NZ) for her expert advice and help in interpreting the strain typing data. Gratefully acknowledged are Geoff Jones (Massey University's Mathematics and Statistics Group), Ian Dohoo (Atlantic Veterinary College, Prince Edward Island, Canada) and Christopher Jewell (Lancaster University) for invaluable comments about statistical data analysis, Carter Butts (University of California, Irvine) for elaborate explanations about permutation methods for network models and ERGM specification, Peter Mucha (University of North Carolina) for helping to implement the generalized Louvain method, and Matthieu Vignes (Massey University's Mathematics and Statistics Group) for his help with the Matlab code.