West Nile Virus in the British Virgin Islands

West Nile virus (WNV) first emerged in the US in 1999 and has since spread across the Americas. Here, we report the continued expansion of WNV to the British Virgin Islands following its emergence in a flock of free-roaming flamingos. Histologic review of a single chick revealed lesions consistent with WNV infection, subsequently confirmed with PCR, immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization. Full genome analysis revealed 99% sequence homology to strains circulating in the US over the past decade. This study highlights the need for rapid necropsy of wild bird carcasses to fully understand the impact of WNV on wild populations.     

Assessment of the bacterial community structure in a Brazilian clay soil treated with atrazine

In the present paper, the bacterial communities in two soils, one from an agricultural sugarcane cropped field and the other from an unperturbed soil with similar geopedological characteristics, were characterized using the Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH) method. FISH consists of in situ identification of bacteria using fluorescent labeled 16S rRNA targeted oligonucleotide probes visualizable under epifluorescence microscope. In the cultivated soil, in line with agricultural practice, the pre-emergence herbicide atrazine had been regularly applied each year at a concentration of 5 L/ha. The Shannon Diversity and Evenness Indices were also calculated using the phylogenetic data obtained from the FISH analysis. Although, at the sampling time (6 months after soil atrazine treatment), no residual herbicide concentration was found, the overall bacterial community results show a lower diversity and evenness in the agricultural soil than in the unperturbed one, demonstrating how microbiological indicators are sensitive to anthropogenic disturbance. In the natural soil, the dominant groups were α-Proteobacteria, β-Proteobacteria, and γ-Proteobacteria (representing more than 50 % of the bacteria), but in the agricultural soil, their abundance decreased significantly and represented just 31 % of the bacteria domain.     

Viral Diversity,Prey Preference,and Bartonella Prevalence in Desmodus rotundus in Guatemala

EcoHealth - Certain bat species serve as natural reservoirs for pathogens in several key viral families including henipa-, lyssa-, corona-, and filoviruses, which may pose serious threats to human...