Floods, Hurricanes, and Other Catastrophes: A Challenge for the Immune System of Livestock and Other Animals

Abstract

Climate change involves different dramatic phenomena including desertification and wildfires, severe storms such as hurricanes and blizzards, increased sea levels resulting in flooding coastal cities and rise of atmospheric CO₂ concentration. The alteration of the climate in a specific region affects the life of indigenous animals and humans. The climate changes influence living beings both directly and indirectly. The immune system of animals dramatically suffers the climate instability, making animals more susceptible to infectious and not infectious diseases. Different species of livestock animals respond with similar mechanisms to global warming, but some of them are more susceptible depending on their age, metabolism, and genetic conditions. The selection and study of autochthonous species and breeds, more easily adapted to specific environmental conditions could be an interesting strategy to face livestock rearing in the future.

Keywords: climate change; global warming; immune system; inflammatory response; livestock.

Figure 1

Scheme of the impact of climate change on the immune system of livestock animals. Climate change is a complex phenomenon that include different dramatic event such as global warming, desertification, alteration of water cycle leading to floods and droughts, increase concentration of atmospheric CO₂, acidification, and alteration of the salinity of the oceans. All these events deeply affect the immune system of livestock species (mammals, avian, and fishes) both directly and indirectly. Many of the responses are common to different animals such as the activation of the HPA axis with the release of cortisol (that is an immune suppressor), production of HSPs in response to the oxidative stress, reduction of Ig production and increased susceptibility to infectious diseases.