Viruses, Vol. 13, Pages 85: Mixed Effects of Habitat Degradation and Resources on Hantaviruses in Sympatric Wild Rodent Reservoirs within a Neotropical Forest

Viruses, Vol. 13, Pages 85: Mixed Effects of Habitat Degradation and Resources on Hantaviruses in Sympatric Wild Rodent Reservoirs within a Neotropical Forest Viruses doi: 10.3390/v13010085 Authors: Jeremy V. Camp Briana Spruill-Harrell Robert D. Owen Carles Solà-Riera Evan P. Williams Gillian Eastwood Aubrey M. Sawyer Colleen B. Jonsson Understanding the ecology of rodent-borne hantaviruses is critical to assessing the risk of spillover to humans. Longitudinal surveys have suggested that hantaviral prevalence in a given host population is tightly linked to rodent ecology and correlates with changes in the species composition of a rodent community over time and/or habitat composition. We tested two hypotheses to identify whether resource addition and/or habitat composition may affect hantavirus prevalence among two sympatric reservoir hosts in a neotropical forest: (i) increased food resources will alter the rodent community and thus hantaviral prevalence; and (ii) host abundance and viral seroprevalence will be associated with habitat composition. We established a baseline of rodent–virus prevalence in three grid pairs of distinct habitat compositions and subjected one grid of each pair to resource augmentation. Increased rodent species diversity was observed on grids where food was added versus untreated control grids during the first post-treatment sampling session. Resource augmentation changed species community composition, yet it did...
Source: Viruses - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Article Source Type: research
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