Research overview: multi-host maintenance of bovine tuberculosis in African ecosystems

Bovine tuberculosis in African wildlife is sustained by a community of hosts, with African buffalo as the principal maintenance population and lions, kudu, warthogs and others variously infected. This overview surveys the multi-host ecology of Mycobacterium bovis in ecosystems like Kruger, the pathways by which the pathogen spilled from cattle and entrenched itself in wildlife, and the role each species plays in maintenance versus spillover. It examines how this complexity frustrates control, since eliminating disease would require addressing the buffalo reservoir. The synthesis connects disease ecology to the management of a chronic wildlife epidemic. It aims to help readers see lion tuberculosis as embedded in a larger web of host species and to understand why multi-host diseases are among the hardest to control in conservation settings.