The emergence of pathogens in isolated and naïve wildlife species can result in drastic population declines and localized extinction events. Two common models for disease integration into host populations are homogenous mixing and travelling waves. While these patterns of disease integration have been documented at landscape and metapopulation scales, there are few accounts of disease integration at more local ‘within population’ scales. Here we test the pattern of disease integration within a population of bare-nosed (common) wombat impacted by the parasitic mite, Sarcoptes scabiei (a globally dispersed pathogen impacting >100 species of mammal). In Australia, sarcoptic mange (the disease caused by S. scabiei) is the most important disease of wombats. The disease is widespread and reports suggest it can cause local population extirpation, but no events have been documented.
Results/Conclusions
Using five years of population surveys and three years of disease severity surveys we show the sarcoptic mange invaded the eastern end of a wombat population in northern Tasmania, and progressed in a westward wave across the population. Over the study period mange caused an 83% population decline, with visual signs of the pathogen preceding the population decline. Remarkably, there was 100% mortality of wombats following the disease wave demonstrating this pathogen to be extremely virulent to wombats. This study contributes valuable information about how this type of pathogen integrates into host populations at local scales, and provided the first formal documentation of impacts on wombats in Australia.