Using fine-scale spatial genetics of Norway rats to improve control efforts and reduce leptospirosis risk in urban slum environments.

ABSTRACT: The Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus) is a key pest species globally and responsible for seasonal outbreaks of the zoonotic bacterial disease leptospirosis in the tropics. The city of Salvador, Brazil, has seen recent and dramatic increases in human population residing in slums, where conditions foster high rat density and increasing leptospirosis infection rates. Intervention campaigns have been used to drastically reduce rat numbers. In planning these interventions, it is important to define the eradication units - the spatial scale at which rats constitute continuous populations and from where rats are likely recolonizing, post-intervention. To provide this information, we applied spatial genetic analyses to 706 rats collected across Salvador and genotyped at 16 microsatellite loci.

SUBMITTER: Richardson JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5367079 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature