Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Montana Wildlife
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Understanding the epidemiologically processes driving disease dynamics and their resulting impacts on population health is a fundamental need for management agencies tasked with maintaining the health of wildlife populations. However, because of the complexity of disease systems that invariably involve multiple players including the host, pathogen and environment acting on multiple spatio-temporal scales, developing modeling tools to understand these systems and inform management decisions is an important need. Such models are critical for not only understanding past and current effects of disease on the health of populations, but also forecasting future impacts. Thus, they can inform decision-making aimed at protecting and restoring the health of wildlife communities. The goal of this project in collaboration with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is to develop and apply statistical approaches to meet this need.