Juxtaposition between host population structures: implications for disease transmission in a sympatric cervid community.

ABSTRACT: Sympatric populations of phylogenetically related species are often vulnerable to similar communicable diseases. Although some host populations may exhibit spatial structure, other hosts within the community may have unstructured populations. Thus, individuals from unstructured host populations may act as interspecific vectors among discrete subpopulations of sympatric alternate hosts. We used a cervid-bovine tuberculosis (Mycobacterium bovis) system to investigate the landscape-scale potential for bovine tuberculosis transmission within a nonmigratory white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and elk (Cervus canadensis) community. Using landscape population genetics, we tested for genetic and spatial structure in white-tailed deer. We then compared these findings with the sympatric elk p

SUBMITTER: Vander Wal E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3804234 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature