The brown rat doesn’t have a good reputation in our culture. This episode probably won’t do much to help their cause and shed the popular perception of the rat as a disease-carrying pest. Although they’re intelligent and social animals that love to be tickled and can make great pets, they are known carriers of several different diseases.

Some of these pose no threat to humans or their livestock, but others are known or possible disease causing agents. As a result, it’s important to monitor which viruses and bacteria are circulating in wild rodent populations so we can act before they cause a problem. Once we know that a virus or bacteria is present in wild rodents and could cause a threat, we can take steps to prevent that from developing.

Here to tell us about her work looking at the viruses and bacteria in wild rodent populations is Ellen Murphy. She’s coming to the end of her PhD at the moment and is busy writing up her thesis, but she’s kindly agreed to tell us about her research.