As the Duck Flies—Estimating the Dispersal of Low-Pathogenic Avian Influenza Viruses by Migrating Mallards

Abstract

Many pathogens rely on the mobility of their hosts for dispersal. In order to understand and predict how a disease can rapidly sweep across entire continents, illuminating the contributions of host movements to disease spread is pivotal. While elegant proposals have been made to elucidate the spread of human infectious diseases, the direct observation of long-distance dispersal events of animal pathogens is challenging. Pathogens like avian influenza A viruses, causing only short disease in their animal hosts, have proven exceptionally hard to study. Here, we integrate comprehensive data on population and disease dynamics for low-pathogenic avian influenza viruses in one of their main hosts, the mallard, with a novel movement model trained from empirical, high-resolution tracks of mallard migrations. This allowed us to simulate individual mallard migrations from a key stopover site in the Baltic Sea for the entire population and link these movements to infection simulations. Using this novel approach, we were able to estimate the dispersal of low-pathogenic avian influenza viruses by migrating mallards throughout several autumn migratory seasons and predicted areas that are at risk of importing these viruses. We found that mallards are competent vectors and on average dispersed viruses over distances of 160 km in just 3 h. Surprisingly, our simulations suggest that such dispersal events are rare even throughout the entire autumn migratory season. Our approach directly combines simulated population-level movements with local infection dynamics and offers a potential converging point for movement and disease ecology.

Influenza A Viruses in Ruddy Turnstones (Arenaria interpres); Connecting Wintering and Migratory Sites with an Ecological Hotspot at Delaware Bay

“…The movement of migrating birds, at both small scales and across broad latitudinal and longitudinal gradients, can serve to disseminate avian influenza A viruses (IAVs) and other pathogens over potentially long distances [1][2][3][4][5]. Wild birds in the orders Anseriformes (ducks and geese) and Charadriiformes (shorebirds, gulls, and terns) are known to have a role in the movement and maintenance of IAVs.…”

“…New Jersey (NJ); 2 Florida (FL); 3 Massachusetts (MA)4 Virus A/Ruddy turnstone/NJ/AI11-1678/2011/H7N7 was used as a "contributing" reference virus for internal genes;5 Virus A/gull/MA/13JR00943/2013/H9N1 was used as a "receiving" reference sequence for internal genes and NA1.…”

Contrasting patterns of Campylobacter and Salmonella distribution in wild birds: a comparative analysis

“…Birds are very mobile and common across all ecological niches, which makes them important vectors of many pathogens, including a variety of viruses, bacteria and protozoa than can be potentially infectious to humans and domestic animals (Jourdain et al , Altizer et al ). Huge scientific effort has been recently devoted to describe transmission patterns of viruses (especially the influenza A virus; van Dijk et al , van Toor et al ) and haemtozooan blood parasites (e.g. Plasmodium ; Ricklefs et al ) in wild avian populations.…”

Satellite tracking of gulls and genomic characterization of faecal bacteria reveals environmentally mediated acquisition and dispersal of antimicrobial‐resistant Escherichia coli on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska

“…), in particular, may be appropriate for such research as numerous species forage on human refuse (Burger, 1981;Weiser & Powell, 2010), including during migratory periods (Hatch, Gill, & Mulcahy, 2011), and this behaviour appears to increase their propensity to harbour bacteria exhibiting AMR (Atterby et al, 2016;Ramey et al, 2018). Given that birds have the potential to transport bacteria and AMR genes through flight (Bonnedahl & Järhult, 2014), and that improved tracking devices have made it possible to better understand bird movements and habitat use (Tomkiewicz, Fuller, Kie, & Bates, 2010) relative to the acquisition and dissemination of infectious agents Taff et al, 2016;van Toor, Avril, Wu, Holan, & Waldenström, 2018), we sought to investigate relationships among landscape use and movement patterns of gulls and the prevalence and genetic diversity of E. coli exhibiting AMR (AMR E. coli) detected in gull faeces.…”