Avian host community structure and prevalence of West Nile virus in Chicago,Illinois |
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| Authors: | Scott R. Loss Gabriel L. Hamer Edward D. Walker Marilyn O. Ruiz Tony L. Goldberg Uriel D. Kitron Jeffrey D. Brawn |
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| Affiliation: | (1) Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, Shelford Vivarium, 606 E. Healey St., Champaign, IL 61820, USA;(2) Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, 13 Natural Resources Building, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA;(3) Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Michigan State University, 2215 Biomedical Physical Sciences, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA;(4) Department of Pathobiology, University of Illinois, 2001 South Lincoln Avenue, Urbana, IL 61802, USA;(5) Department of Environmental Studies, Emory University, 400 Dowman Drive, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA;(6) Present address: Conservation Biology Graduate Program, University of Minnesota, 342 Hodson Hall, 1980 Folwell Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA |
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| Abstract: | Vertebrate host diversity has been postulated to mediate prevalence of zoonotic, vector-borne diseases, such that as diversity increases, transmission dampens. This “dilution effect” is thought to be caused by distribution of infective bites to incompetent reservoir hosts. We quantified avian species richness, avian seroprevalence for antibodies to West Nile virus (WNV), and infection of WNV in Culex mosquitoes, in the Chicago metropolitan area, Illinois, USA, a region of historically high WNV activity. Results indicated high overall avian seroprevalence and variation in seroprevalence across host species; however, there was no negative correlation between avian richness and Culex infection rate or between richness and infection status in individual birds. Bird species with high seroprevalence, especially northern cardinals and mourning doves, may be important sentinels for WNV in Chicago, since they were common and widespread among all study sites. Overall, our results suggest no net effect of increasing species richness to West Nile virus transmission in Chicago. Other intrinsic and extrinsic factors, such as variation in mosquito host preference, reservoir host competence, temperature, and precipitation, may be more important than host diversity for driving interannual variation in WNV transmission. These results from a fine-scale study call into question the generality of a dilution effect for WNV at coarser spatial scales. |
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| Keywords: | Dilution effect Spatial scale Sentinel species Reservoir host Host competence |
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