  Brucellosis is a zoonotic bacterial infectious disease that affects livestock
and wildlife. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is the last area in the United
States where cattle are regularly infected with brucellosis. Even though
livestock are vaccinated, interactions with reservoir species still result in
spill-over cases to cattle. The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine has indicated that modeling efforts should focus on the transmission
between elk and cattle and should be conducted to better understand the effects
of land-use change and landscape configuration on disease risk. This chapter
determines how the landscape's configuration, using the shape and amount of
habitat overlap between elk and cattle, contributes to cross-species
brucellosis transmission, and how land-use change translates to disease
prevalence. A mathematical-epidemiological model is combined with landscape
ecology metrics to estimate transmission rates between the species and model
disease spread. The results of this study can ultimately help stakeholders
develop policy for controlling brucellosis transmission between livestock and
elk in the Greater Yellowstone Area. In turn, this could lead to less disease
prevalence, reduce associated costs, and assist in population management.
