Landscape Structures Affect Risk of Canine Distemper in Urban Wildlife

Gras, Pierre; Knuth, Sarah; Börner, Konstantin; Marescot, Lucile; Benhaiem, Sarah; Aue, Angelika; Wittstatt, Ulrich; Kleinschmit, Birgit; Kramer‐Schadt, Stephanie

doi:10.3389/fevo.2018.00136

Cited by 21 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…Whilst differences in overall abundance and diversity of viruses present in foxes may be a reflection of differences in diet and environment, we found rural foxes to have a much higher abundance of vertebrate-associated viruses than urban. It has previously been suggested that red foxes in highly urbanised areas experience lower exposure to canine distemper virus due to reduced movement opportunities as a result of wildlife corridors being absent in densely built-up areas ( Gras et al. 2018 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Red fox viromes in urban and rural landscapes

et al. 2020

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The Red fox (Vulpes vulpes) has established large populations in Australia’s urban and rural areas since its introduction following European settlement. The cryptic and highly adaptable nature of foxes allows them to invade cities and live among humans while remaining largely unnoticed. Urban living and access to anthropogenic food resources also influence fox ecology. Urban foxes grow larger, live at higher densities and are more social than their rural counterparts. These ecological changes in urban red foxes are likely to impact the pathogens that they harbour, and foxes could pose a disease risk to humans and other species that share these urban spaces. To investigate this possibility, we used a meta-transcriptomic approach to characterise the virome of urban and rural foxes across the Greater Sydney region in Australia. Urban and rural foxes differed significantly in virome composition, with rural foxes harbouring a greater abundance of viruses compared to their urban counterparts. We identified ten potentially novel vertebrate-associated viruses in both urban and rural foxes, some of which are related to viruses associated with disease in domestic species and humans. These included members of the Astroviridae, Picobirnaviridae, Hepeviridae and Picornaviridae as well as rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus-2 (RHDV2). This study sheds light on the viruses carried by urban and rural foxes and emphasises the need for greater genomic surveillance of foxes and other invasive species at the human-wildlife interface.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2018 ). By comparison, exposure to canine distemper virus increased in areas with more natural habitats ( Gras et al. 2018 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Red fox viromes in urban and rural landscapes

et al. 2020

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“…The landscape variable was in our top model explaining rabies‐induced mortalities, but its effect was small. Habitat type can affect the level of disease incidence because higher quality habitats support more hosts, and thus there are more opportunities for disease transmission events (Gras et al., ; Kauffman & Jules, ; Rees, Bélanger, et al., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The achieved level of population immunity also depends on host density and social behaviour (Elliot & Hart, 2010). Host density and interactions tend to be greater in high-quality habitats (Houle, Fortin, Mainguy, & Canac-Marquis, 2011) and these areas can be focal points for infectious diseases (Gras et al, 2018;Kauffman & Jules, 2006;Rees, Bélanger, Lelièvre, Coté, & Lambert, 2011). Timing and frequency of bait distribution are also important for successful immunisation of young-of-year individuals (Mainguy et al, 2012), ensuring bait availability during periods when animals are actively searching for food (Boyer, Canac-Marquis, Guérin, Mainguy, & Pelletier, 2011), and before periods of heightened movement during fall dispersal and interaction activities such as winter denning (Hirsch, Reynolds, Gehrt, & Craft, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential impacts of vaccination on wildlife disease spread during epizootic and enzootic phases

Newton

Pond

Tinline

et al. 2019

Journal of Applied Ecology

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1. Dissemination of oral vaccine baits is a cost-effective method to contain and control infectious wildlife diseases. The effectiveness of vaccine barriers in slowing or halting disease spread depends on host ecology and landscape variability. However, it is not clear the extent to which the success of vaccine barriers to manage disease may change from an epizootic to an enzootic phase of a disease invasion, nor is it apparent if this depends on the quality and configuration of host habitats.2. We explore these questions using the raccoon variant rabies virus (RRV) as a model system. This zoonotic disease of high concern has been enzootic in eastern North America for decades, pushing into new areas and re-emerging in previously controlled zones.3. We use a spatially explicit individual-based model to assess how levels of oral vaccination and habitat fragmentation affect RRV spread across vaccine barriers during epizootic and enzootic phases. We use space-time characteristics of infection chains (individual-to-individual transmission of RRV) to compare simulated outcomes.4. Results indicate that vaccine barriers have the strongest impact on the control of RRV during the epizootic phase. Counterproductively, mid-levels of immunisation during an enzootic phase lead to more rabies-induced mortalities than lower or higher vaccination levels. Infection chains spread faster during the epizootic phase. Landscape effects on chain characteristics were more subtle than effects of invasion phase and vaccination. Synthesis and applications. A spatially explicit individual-based modelling approachto examine mechanisms of raccoon variant rabies virus spread during epizootic and enzootic phases provides insights into efficacy of wildlife disease vaccination efforts. Our results demonstrate the importance of detecting and controlling outbreaks before they become enzootic. We discuss the implications for moving vaccine barriers to push back and decrease the size of enzootic areas. K E Y W O R D S enzootic, epizootic, habitat fragmentation, individual-based model, infectious disease management, rabies, vaccination, wildlife disease This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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“…Herpetofauna are more susceptible to higher disease prevalence and toxicity in urbanized ecosystems compared to mammal fauna (Murray et al, 2019). In some cases, urbanization can even hamper the spread of disease as a result of reduced host densities in cities compared to rural areas (Fountain-Jones et al, 2017;Gras et al, 2018). While patterns of species richness and population density vary significantly across taxa, urban birds and arthropods tend towards reduced diversity and increased abundance (Faeth et al, 2011;Mcdonald et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Downtown Diet: a global meta-analysis of urbanization on consumption patterns of vertebrate predators

Gámez

Potts

Mills

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Predation is a fundamental ecological process that shapes communities and drives long-term evolutionary dynamics. As the world rapidly urbanizes, it is critical to understand how the built environment and other human perturbations alter predation across taxa. We conducted a meta-analysis to quantify the effects of urban environments on three components of trophic ecology in predators: dietary species richness (DSR), dietary evenness (DEV), and stable isotopic ratios (δ13C and δ15N IR). We then evaluated whether intensity of anthropogenic pressure, using the human footprint index (HFI), explained variation in the effect sizes of dietary attributes using a meta-regression. We calculated Hedges’ g effect sizes from 44 studies including 11,986 samples across 40 predatory species in 39 cities globally. The direction and magnitude of effect sizes varied between predator taxonomic groups with reptile diets exhibiting the most sensitivity to urbanization. Effect sizes revealed that predators in cities had comparable DSR, DEV, and nitrogen ratios, though carbon consumption was significantly higher. We found that HFI did not explain variation in effect sizes, a result consistent between the 1993 and 2009 editions of this metric. Our study provides the first assessment of how urbanization has perturbed predator-prey interactions for multiple taxa at a global scale, revealing that the functional role of predators is conserved in cities and urbanization does not inherently relax predation.

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Landscape Structures Affect Risk of Canine Distemper in Urban Wildlife

Cited by 21 publications

References 67 publications

Red fox viromes in urban and rural landscapes

Red fox viromes in urban and rural landscapes

Differential impacts of vaccination on wildlife disease spread during epizootic and enzootic phases

Downtown Diet: a global meta-analysis of urbanization on consumption patterns of vertebrate predators

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