title: The role of wild canids and felids in spreading parasites to dogs and cats in Europe. Part I: Protozoa and tick-borne agents.
abstract: Over the last few decades, the world has witnessed radical changes in climate, landscape, and ecosystems. These events, together with other factors such as increasing illegal wildlife trade and changing human behaviour towards wildlife, are resulting into thinning boundaries between wild canids and felids and their domestic counterparts. As a consequence, the epidemiology of diseases caused by a number of infectious agents is undergoing profound readjustements, as pathogens adapt to new hosts and environments. Therefore, there is a risk for diseases of wildlife to spread to domestic carnivores and vice versa, and for zoonotic agents to emerge or re-emerge in human populations. Hence, the identification of the hazards arising from the co-habitation of these species is critical in order to plan and develop adequate control strategies against these pathogens. In the first of this two-part article, we review the role that wild canids and felids may play in the transmission of protozoa and arthropod-borne agents to dogs and cats in Europe, and provide an account of how current and future progress in our understanding of the ecology and epidemiology of parasites, as well as of host-parasite interactions, can assist efforts aimed at controlling parasite transmission.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Medicina Veterinaria, Universita' degli Studi di Bari, 70010 Valenzano, Italy. Electronic address: domenico.otranto@uniba.it.
authors.forename: Domenico
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Otranto
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, CB3 0ES Cambridge, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Cinzia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cantacessi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Animal Hygiene & Veterinary Public Health, University of Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pfeffer
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Medicina Veterinaria, Universita' degli Studi di Bari, 70010 Valenzano, Italy; Departamento de Imunologia, Centro de Pesquisas Aggeu Magalhães, Fiocruz-PE, Recife, Brazil.
authors.forename: Filipe
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dantas-Torres
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Veterinarie, Universita' degli Studi di Messina, 98168 Messina, Italy.
authors.forename: Emanuele
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Brianti
authors.affiliation: Institute of Parasitology, University of Zürich, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Deplazes
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Veterinarie e Sanita' Pubblica, Universita' degli Studi di Milano, 20133 Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Genchi
authors.affiliation: Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale, 40064 Ozzano dell'Emilia, Italy.
authors.forename: Vittorio
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Guberti
authors.affiliation: Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, 35020 Legnaro, Italy.
authors.forename: Gioia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Capelli
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000835:Animals, Wild / Q000469:parasitology*; D046028:Canidae; D002371:Cat Diseases / Q000469:parasitology / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000635:transmission*; D002415:Cats; D004283:Dog Diseases / Q000469:parasitology / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000635:transmission*; D004285:Dogs; D005060:Europe; D045989:Felidae; D011529:Protozoan Infections, Animal / Q000469:parasitology / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000635:transmission*; D017282:Tick-Borne Diseases / Q000469:parasitology / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000635:transmission / Q000662:veterinary*; D013987:Ticks / Q000469:parasitology*
keywords: Cats; Dogs; Europe; Parasites; Reservoirs; Wild canids; Wild felids; Wildlife; Zoonoses