Predicting West Nile virus transmission in North American bird communities using phylogenetic mixed effects models and eBird citizen science data.

ABSTRACT:

Background

West Nile virus (WNV) is a mosquito-transmitted disease of birds that has caused bird population declines and can spill over into human populations. Previous research has identified bird species that infect a large fraction of the total pool of infected mosquitoes and correlate with human infection risk; however, these analyses cover small spatial regions and cannot be used to predict transmission in bird communities in which these species are rare or absent. Here we present a mechanistic model for WNV transmission that predicts WNV spread (R₀) in any bird community in North America by scaling up from the physiological responses of individual birds to transmission at the level of the community. We predict unmeasured bird species' responses to infection using p

SUBMITTER: Kain MP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6686473 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature