Abstract
Environment determines the distribution and prevalence of vector-borne pathogens due to its direct and indirect effects on the hosts, vectors, and pathogens. To investigate the relationship between Usutu virus occurrence and host biodiversity and to characterize the nidus of infection, we used field-based measures of host diversity and density (all birds and only passerines), vector abundance, landscape and Usutu virus prevalence (mosquito infection rate), an emergent disease with a similar cycle to West Nile virus. We collected 908,237 female mosquitoes in an area of 54,984 ha in the Doñana National Park, southern Spain. We identified the mosquitoes and screened them for viruses, censused birds, characterized landscape and climatic variables, and then modeled the presence and infection rate of the virus in relation to host, vector, climatic, and landscape variables. Monthly Usutu presence, detected in Culex perexiguus, was positively related to Passeriformes richness and secondarily to NDVI in the previous month. Our results suggest that Usutu prevalence may be higher when and where host (passerine) richness was high, and thus challenging the conventional idea that host biodiversity reduces flavivirus amplification.
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Acknowledgements
Oscar González carried out all the vertebrate censuses, while Juani Moreno and Antonio Magallanes from the Mosquito Control Service (Huelva, Spain) and Esmeralda Perez Morueta, Mayca Lozano, Carlos Moreno, and Cristina Pérez from the Estación Biológica de Doñana (Sevilla, Spain) helped with mosquito capture and identification. Discussions with Jean-François Guégan, Benjamin Roche, Gabriel Garcia-Peña, and Carlo Costantini improved this paper.
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Roiz, D., Vázquez, A., Ruiz, S. et al. Evidence that Passerine Birds Act as Amplifying Hosts for Usutu Virus Circulation. EcoHealth 16, 734–742 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-019-01441-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-019-01441-3