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Avian host community structure and prevalence of West Nile virus in Chicago, Illinois

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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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Acknowledgments

We thank the Village of Oak Lawn, Illinois, especially the Department of Public Works, who generously provided laboratory space during the study, as well as the municipalities who cooperated with us during field research (Alsip, City of Chicago, Evergreen Park, Harvey, Indian Head Park, Orland Park, Palos Hills). T. Thompson, G. Amore, S. Dallman, D. Gohde, M. Goshorn, J. McClain, M. Neville, B. Pultorak, and E. Secker, provided field assistance, and B. Bullard, B. Morgan, A. Thelen, M. Bender, L. Abernathy, and J. McClain assisted with processing samples in the laboratory. L. Stark and the Florida Department of Health provided positive control chicken serum, L. Mosher and the Michigan Department of Community Health provided the positive control NY99 strain of WNV, and the CDC Division of Vector Borne Infectious Diseases supplied the 4G2 and 6B6C-1 antibodies. This work was supported by the NSF/NIH program in the Ecology of Infectious Diseases (grant 04-29124). All fieldwork was carried out under appropriate collecting permits with approvals from the University of Illinois Animal Use Protocol no. 03034 and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at Michigan State University, Animal Use Form no. 12/03-152-00.

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  1. Scott R. Loss

    Present address: Conservation Biology Graduate Program, University of Minnesota, 342 Hodson Hall, 1980 Folwell Avenue, St. Paul, MN, 55108, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, Shelford Vivarium, 606 E. Healey St., Champaign, IL, 61820, USA

    Scott R. Loss & Jeffrey D. Brawn

  2. Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, 13 Natural Resources Building, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Gabriel L. Hamer

  3. Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Michigan State University, 2215 Biomedical Physical Sciences, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Edward D. Walker

  4. Department of Pathobiology, University of Illinois, 2001 South Lincoln Avenue, Urbana, IL, 61802, USA

    Marilyn O. Ruiz & Tony L. Goldberg

  5. Department of Environmental Studies, Emory University, 400 Dowman Drive, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA

    Uriel D. Kitron

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  2. Gabriel L. Hamer
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Correspondence to Scott R. Loss.

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Communicated by Heli Siitari.

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Loss, S.R., Hamer, G.L., Walker, E.D. et al. Avian host community structure and prevalence of West Nile virus in Chicago, Illinois. Oecologia 159, 415–424 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-008-1224-6

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