Bird Movement Predicts Buggy Creek Virus Infection in Insect Vectors

Brown, Charles R.; Brown, Mary Bomberger; Moore, Amy T.; Komar, Nicholas

doi:10.1089/vbz.2006.0646

Cited by 25 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…The only temporal correlates associated with mean colony size were population size and early-season temperature, and these effects may be related to each other. This Cliff Swallow population contains large numbers of nonbreeding, transient individuals each year (Brown 1998, Brown and Brown 2004a, Brown et al 2007. In warm years when insect food is more abundant, possibly more transients are able to get into breeding condition and establish nests.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial and temporal unpredictability of colony size in Cliff Swallows across 30 years

Brown

Roche

2013

Ecological Monographs

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Abstract. Most colonially breeding animals occupy colonies that range in size from a few pairs to thousands of individuals, but the causes of colony size variation are largely unknown. Three general hypotheses are: (1) that variation in colony size is maintained by fluctuating selection via spatial and temporal changes in fitness associated with different colony sizes; (2) that colony formation reflects heterogeneity in habitat, with some sites having resources to support more individuals than others; and (3) that individuals assess the presence or annual reproductive success of current colony residents at each site and aggregate preferentially at high-quality sites. These hypotheses make predictions about how consistent colony size should be across sites and among years. We examined temporal and spatial variability of colony size for .200 Cliff Swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) colony sites in western Nebraska across a 30-year period. A colony's substrate type, annual population size in the study area, and whether the nesting season was relatively warm or cool, influenced average annual colony size. While some Cliff Swallow colony sites hosted perennially large colonies and others perennially small ones, between-year variability in colony size at most sites was high. Annual colony size distributions were relatively stable over 30 years and provided no evidence for long-term directional changes in colony size. The only ecological characteristic that was strongly associated with Cliff Swallow colony size at a site was the type of nesting substrate, with bridges tending to have larger colonies and being more frequently occupied than other substrates. Some sites showed annual changes in colony size consistent with the birds' basing their choice of colony on the presence or success of conspecifics, but many sites did not conform to a pattern expected if coloniality is a by-product of traditional aggregation. Colony size in Cliff Swallows was temporally and spatially unpredictable when viewed across the 30 years of this study. Each of the three hypotheses to explain size variation may have applied at certain sites, but the pattern of colony size variability leant the most support to the hypothesis that fluctuating selection on group size maintains colonies of widely different sizes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial and temporal unpredictability of colony size in Cliff Swallows across 30 years

Brown

Roche

2013

Ecological Monographs

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“…10: 20140117 adults and instars, there was no difference in virus prevalence between adults and instars [22], so differing age composition cannot explain our results. Prevalence of BCRV in bugs can also vary with cliff swallow colony size and with the presence of house sparrows as alternative hosts [22,23], but neither factor was a significant predictor of BCRV prevalence in these analyses and can be ruled out as confounding effects. Infected bugs were either less likely to get on a bird that travels to a new site, less likely to survive the ride on the bird's legs or feet or less likely to disembark at a new site.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…Apparently, higher BCRV prevalence in bugs at established colonies only happens after repeated years of bird presence, allowing time for the relatively rare virus introductions to accumulate [23] and/or bug-to-bug transmission to occur [25].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dispersing hemipteran vectors have reduced arbovirus prevalence

Moore

Brown

2014

Biol. Lett.

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A challenge in managing vector-borne zoonotic diseases in human and wildlife populations is predicting where epidemics or epizootics are likely to occur, and this requires knowing in part the likelihood of infected insect vectors dispersing pathogens from existing infection foci to novel areas. We measured prevalence of an arbovirus, Buggy Creek virus, in dispersing and resident individuals of its exclusive vector, the ectoparasitic swallow bug (Oeciacus vicarius), that occupies cliff swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) colonies in western Nebraska. Bugs colonizing new colony sites and immigrating into established colonies by clinging to the swallows' legs and feet had significantly lower virus prevalence than bugs in established colonies and those that were clustering in established colonies before dispersing. The reduced likelihood of infected bugs dispersing to new colony sites indicates that even heavily infected sites may not always export virus to nearby foci at a high rate. Infected arthropods should not be assumed to exhibit the same dispersal or movement behaviour as uninfected individuals, and these differences in dispersal should perhaps be considered in the epidemiology of vectorborne pathogens such as arboviruses.

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“…This virus is ecologically distinct from other alphaviruses in that it is transmitted by swallow bugs rather than mosquitoes [23,25,37,38]. Prevalence of BCRV in swallow bugs averages approximately 25 per cent of bug pools over our study area and across different years [24,26,39]. The two lineages (A and B) of the virus are ecologically distinct, with lineage A more likely to be found at colony sites containing only house sparrows or at mixed-species colonies, and lineage B at sites with only cliff swallows [29,40].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 84%

An enzootic vector-borne virus is amplified at epizootic levels by an invasive avian host

et al. 2010

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Determining the effect of an invasive species on enzootic pathogen dynamics is critical for understanding both human epidemics and wildlife epizootics. Theoretical models suggest that when a naive species enters an established host-parasite system, the new host may either reduce ('dilute') or increase ('spillback') pathogen transmission to native hosts. There are few empirical data to evaluate these possibilities, especially for animal pathogens. Buggy Creek virus (BCRV) is an arthropod-borne alphavirus that is enzootically transmitted by the swallow bug (Oeciacus vicarius) to colonially nesting cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota). In western Nebraska, introduced house sparrows (Passer domesticus) invaded cliff swallow colonies approximately 40 years ago and were exposed to BCRV. We evaluated how the addition of house sparrows to this host-parasite system affected the prevalence and amplification of a bird-associated BCRV lineage. The infection prevalence in house sparrows was eight times that of cliff swallows. Nestling house sparrows in mixed-species colonies were significantly less likely to be infected than sparrows in single-species colonies. Infected house sparrows circulated BCRV at higher viraemia titres than cliff swallows. BCRV detected in bug vectors at a site was positively associated with virus prevalence in house sparrows but not with virus prevalence in cliff swallows. The addition of a highly susceptible invasive host species has led to perennial BCRV epizootics at cliff swallow colony sites. The native cliff swallow host confers a dilution advantage to invasive sparrow hosts in mixed colonies, while at the same sites house sparrows may increase the likelihood that swallows become infected.

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Bird Movement Predicts Buggy Creek Virus Infection in Insect Vectors

Cited by 25 publications

References 41 publications

Spatial and temporal unpredictability of colony size in Cliff Swallows across 30 years

Spatial and temporal unpredictability of colony size in Cliff Swallows across 30 years

Dispersing hemipteran vectors have reduced arbovirus prevalence

An enzootic vector-borne virus is amplified at epizootic levels by an invasive avian host

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