Surveillance of Wildlife Viruses: Insights from South Australia's Monitoring of Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease Virus (RHDV GI.1 and GI.2).

Surveillance of wildlife virus impacts can be passive or active. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, especially regarding cost and knowledge that can be gained. Monitoring of rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (GI.

Timing and severity of immunizing diseases in rabbits is controlled by seasonal matching of host and pathogen dynamics.

Infectious diseases can exert a strong influence on the dynamics of host populations, but it remains unclear why such disease-mediated control only occurs under particular environmental conditions. We used 16 years of detailed field data on invasive European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) in Australia, linked to individual-based stochastic models and Bayesian approximations, to test whether (i) mortality associated with rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD) is driven primarily by seasonal matches/mismatches between demographic rates and epidemiological dynamics and (ii) delayed infection (arising from insusceptibility and maternal antibodies in juveniles) are important factors in determining disease severity and local population persistence of rabbits. We found that both the timing of reproduction and exposure to viruses drove recurrent seasonal epidemics of RHD.