The New South Wales Mouse Plague 2020-2021: A One Health description.

A mouse plague occurred in Eastern Australia from spring 2020 to winter 2021, impacting an area of around 180,000 km. It harmed human physical and psychological health, damaged the natural and built environment, and endangered farmed, domestic and native animals. However, the mouse plague was overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as the end of the plague coincided with the arrival and surge of the COVID-19 delta strain in rural New South Wales (NSW).

Exploring patterns of female house mouse spatial organisation among outbreaking and stable populations.

The size and distribution of home ranges reflect how individuals within a population use, defend, and share space and resources, and may thus be an important predictor of population-level dynamics. Eruptive species, such as the house mouse in Australian grain-growing regions, are an ideal species in which to investigate variations in space use and home range overlap between stable and outbreaking populations. In this study, we use spatially explicit capture-recapture models to explore if space use and home range overlap among female mice could serve as indicators of changes in population density leading into summer.

From chip to SNP: Rapid development and evaluation of a targeted capture genotyping-by-sequencing approach to support research and management of a plaguing rodent.

The management of invasive species has been greatly enhanced by population genetic analyses of multilocus single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) datasets that provide critical information regarding pest population structure, invasion pathways, and reproductive biology. For many applications there is a need for protocols that offer rapid, robust and efficient genotyping on the order of hundreds to thousands of SNPs, that can be tailored to specific study populations and that are scalable for long-term monitoring schemes. Despite its status as a model laboratory species, there are few existing resources for studying wild populations of house mice (Mus musculus spp.

Effects of harvesting and stubble management on abundance of pest rodents (Mus musculus) in a conservation agriculture system.

Background: The shift to more environmentally sensitive agricultural practices over the last several decades has changed farmland landscapes worldwide. Changes including no-till and retaining high biomass mulch has been coincident with an increase in rodent pests in South Africa, India, South America and Europe, indicating a possible conflict between conservation agriculture (CA) and rodent pest management. Research on effects of various crop management practices associated with CA on pest rodent population dynamics is needed to anticipate and develop CA-relevant management strategies.

Sensitivity of the stripe-faced dunnart, Sminthopsis macroura (Gould 1845), to the insecticide, fipronil; implications for pesticide risk assessments in Australia.

A lack of toxicity data quantifying responses of Australian native mammals to agricultural pesticides prompted an investigation into the sensitivity of the stripe-faced dunnart, Sminthopsis macroura (Gould 1845) to the insecticide, fipronil (5-amino-3-cyano-1-(2,6-dichloro-4-trifluoromethylphenyl)-4-trifluoromethylsulfinyl pyrazole, CAS No. 120068-37-3). Using the Up-And-Down method for determining acute oral toxicity in mammals (OECD) median lethal dose estimates of 990 mg kg (95% confidence interval (CI) = 580.

CropPol: A dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination.

Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this service, develop predictions, and inform management actions.

Effects of background food on alternative grain uptake and zinc phosphide efficacy in wild house mice.

Background: House mice (Mus musculus) cause significant, ongoing losses to grain crops in Australia, particularly during mouse plagues. Zinc phosphide (ZnP) coated grain is used for control, but with variable success. In a laboratory setting, we tested if mice would (i) switch from consumption of one grain type to another when presented with an alternative and (ii) consume ZnP-treated grains when presented as a choice with a different grain.

Postweaning mortality in commercial swine production. I: review of non-infectious contributing factors.

Postweaning mortality is a complex causal matrix involving animal, environment, and infectious etiologic factors. Despite advances in swine productivity such as total pigs born, growth rate, feed intake, and efficiency, there have been modest to no improvements in postweaning mortality rates over the last several years. Industry averages for postweaning mortality range from four to eight percent for each the nursery, grow-finish, or wean-finish stages.

Postweaning mortality in commercial swine production II: review of infectious contributing factors.

Postweaning mortality is extremely complex with a multitude of noninfectious and infectious contributing factors. In the current review, our objective is to describe the current state of knowledge regarding infectious causes of postweaning mortality, focusing on estimates of frequency and magnitude of effect where available. While infectious mortality is often categorized by physiologic body system affected, we believe the complex multifactorial nature is better understood by an alternative stratification dependent on intervention type.

A bipedal mammalian model for spinal cord injury research: The tammar wallaby.

: Most animal studies of spinal cord injury are conducted in quadrupeds, usually rodents. It is unclear to what extent functional results from such studies can be translated to bipedal species such as humans because bipedal and quadrupedal locomotion involve very different patterns of spinal control of muscle coordination. Bipedalism requires upright trunk stability and coordinated postural muscle control; it has been suggested that peripheral sensory input is less important in humans than quadrupeds for recovery of locomotion following spinal injury.

Pharmacological inhibition of a microRNA family in nonhuman primates by a seed-targeting 8-mer antimiR.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate many aspects of human biology. They target mRNAs for translational repression or degradation through base pairing with 3' untranslated regions, primarily via seed sequences (nucleotides 2 to 8 in the mature miRNA sequence). A number of individual miRNAs and miRNA families share seed sequences and targets, but differ in the sequences outside of the seed.