There are more herbivorous waterfowl (swans and geese) close to humans, livestock and poultry than ever before. This creates widespread conflict with agriculture and other human interests, but also debate about the role of swans and geese as potential vectors of disease of relevance for human and animal health. Using a One Health perspective, we provide the first comprehensive review of the scientific literature about the most relevant viral, bacterial, and unicellular pathogens occurring in wild geese and swans. Research thus far suggests that these birds may play a role in transmission of avian influenza virus, Salmonella, Campylobacter, and antibiotic resistance. On the other hand, at present there is no evidence that geese and swans play a role in transmission of Newcastle disease, duck plague, West Nile virus, Vibrio, Yersinia, Clostridium, Chlamydophila, and Borrelia. Finally, based on present knowledge it is not possible to say if geese and swans play a role in transmission of Escherichia coli, Pasteurella, Helicobacter, Brachyspira, Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and Microsporidia. This is largely due to changes in classification and taxonomy, rapid development of identification methods and lack of knowledge about host specificity. Previous research tends to overrate the role of geese and swans as disease vectors; we do not find any evidence that they are significant transmitters to humans or livestock of any of the pathogens considered in this review. Nevertheless, it is wise to keep poultry and livestock separated from small volume waters used by many wild waterfowl, but there is no need to discourage livestock grazing in nature reserves or pastures where geese and swans are present. Under some circumstances it is warranted to discourage swans and geese from using wastewater ponds, drinking water reservoirs, and public beaches. Intensified screening of swans and geese for AIV, West Nile virus and anatid herpesvirus is warranted.

Next generation sequencing technologies allow to obtain at low cost the genomic sequence information that currently lacks for most economically and ecologically important organisms. For the mallard duck genomic data is limited. The mallard is, besides a species of large agricultural and societal importance, also the focal species when it comes to long distance dispersal of Avian Influenza. For large scale identification of SNPs we performed Illumina sequencing of wild mallard DNA and compared our data with ongoing genome and EST sequencing of domesticated conspecifics. This is the first study of its kind for waterfowl.

Human affiliation with nonhuman nature is an important dimension of environmental concern and support for pro-environmental attitudes. A significant theory of human connectedness with nature, the Biophilia Hypothesis, suggests that there exists a genetically based inclination for human affiliation with the biological world. Both support and challenge to the Biophilia Hypothesis are abundant in the literature of environmental psychology. One response that both challenges and builds upon the Biophilia Hypothesis is the Topophilia Hypothesis. The Topophilia Hypothesis has extended the ideas of biophilia to incorporate a broader conception of nonhuman nature and a co-evolutionary theory of genetic response and cultural learning. While the Topophilia Hypothesis is a new idea, it is built upon long-standing scholarship from humanistic geography and theories in human evolution. The Topophilia Hypothesis expands previous theory and provides a multidisciplinary consideration of how biological selection and cultural learning may have interacted during human evolution to promote adaptive mechanisms for human affiliation with nonhuman nature via specific place attachment. Support for this possible co-evolutionary foundation for place-based human affiliation with nonhuman nature is explored from multiple vantage points. We raise the question of whether this affiliation may have implications for multifunctional landscape management. Ultimately, we propose that nurturing potential topophilic tendencies may be a useful method to promote sustainable efforts at the local level with implications for the global.

The study of speciation and maintenance of species barriers is at the core of evolutionary biology. During speciation the genome of one population becomes separated from other populations of the same species, which may lead to genomic incompatibility with time. This separation is complete when no fertile offspring is produced from inter-population matings, which is the basis of the biological species concept. Birds, in particular ducks, are recognised as a challenging and illustrative group of higher vertebrates for speciation studies. There are many sympatric and ecologically similar duck species, among which fertile hybrids occur relatively frequently in nature, yet these species remain distinct.