Movement analysis of free-grazing domestic ducks in Poyang Lake, China: a disease connection

Abstract

Previous work suggests domestic poultry are important contributors to the emergence and transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza throughout Asia. In Poyang Lake, China, domestic duck production cycles are synchronized with arrival and departure of thousands of migratory wild birds in the area. During these periods, high densities of juvenile domestic ducks are in close proximity to migratory wild ducks, increasing the potential for the virus to be transmitted and subsequently disseminated via migration. In this paper, we use GPS dataloggers and dynamic Brownian bridge models to describe movements and habitat use of free-grazing domestic ducks in the Poyang Lake basin and identify specific areas that may have the highest risk of H5N1 transmission between domestic and wild birds. Specifically, we determine relative use by free-grazing domestic ducks of natural wetlands, which are the most heavily used areas by migratory wild ducks, and of rice paddies, which provide habitat for resident wild ducks and lower densities of migratory wild ducks. To our knowledge, this is the first movement study on domestic ducks, and our data show potential for free-grazing domestic ducks from farms located near natural wetlands to come in contact with wild waterfowl, thereby increasing the risk for disease transmission. This study provides an example of the importance of movement ecology studies in understanding dynamics such as disease transmission on a complicated landscape.

Global phylodynamic analysis of avian paramyxovirus-1 provides evidence of inter-host transmission and intercontinental spatial diffusion

“…APMV-1 outbreak reports often do not have details on the ecological environment in which the host bird was sampled making it unclear whether a duck is wild, domestic or feral and precluding the formal testing of this hypothesis with the dataset used in this investigation. As evidence exists that domestic and wild ducks often come into contact with one another when domestic ducks are allowed to browse freely [24], the barrier between these two groups may be porous in regions where there is spatiotemporal overlap of infected bird populations, particularly in production systems with low biosecurity. Furthermore, live bird markets may represent a distinct ecological niche that could produce limited cross-species transmission for APMV-1 due to the close proximity of multiple bird species and the constant turnover of naïve hosts.…”

Avian influenza A (H9N2) virus infections among poultry workers, swine workers, and the general population in Beijing, China, 2013‐2016: A serological cohort study

“…Eight migratory routes for wild birds exist in the world, and China is located in three of them: the East Asia–Australia Flyway, Central Asia Flyway, and the West Asia‐East Africa flyway. Lakes and related wetlands along the flyways (eg, Qinghai Lake Nature Reserve, Dongting Lake Nature Reserve, and Poyang Lake Nature Reserve) are very important staging, overwintering and breeding sites for migratory birds. Each migration season, tens of millions of wild birds (>10 million birds for Dongting Lake) congregate at the lakes, sharing a common habitat with local birds, including domestic ducks .…”

Consequences of seasonal migration : How goose relocation strategies influence infection prevalence and pathogen dispersal

“…For a better understanding of how bird migration affects pathogen dispersal and infection prevalence dynamics, empirical studies such as tracking bird migration (Rappole et al 2000;Prosser et al 2009Prosser et al , 2016, analysing spatial and temporal correlation between bird movement and infection outbreak (Si et al 2009;, phylogenetic relationships among infection outbreaks (Tian et al 2015;Chen et al 2005) and theoretical modelling (Breban et al 2009;Rohani et al 2009) have been carried out.…”

“…Previous studies suggested that HPAIVs originated from domestic ducks, especially in environment with high densities and low bio-security when one co-infected with multiple subtypes of low pathogenic avian influenza viruses (LPAIVs) (Fearnley 2015;Takekawa et al 2010). Moreover, the domestic ducks are one of the main natural reservoirs of HPAIVs (Hill et al 2012) and their habitat facilitates virus persistence in the environment and transmission between hosts (Hénaux and Samuel 2011;Stallknecht et al 1990;Prosser et al 2016). Therefore, areas with high densities of domestic ducks, such as southeast China, are considered HPAIV outbreak hotspots (Prosser et al 2013).…”

“…Furthermore, migratory waterfowl may be infected with HPAIVs from domestic ducks when they contact each other (Prosser et al 2016;Takekawa et al 2010). Although the direct evidence is rare, indirect evidence from LPAIVs outbreaks showed that arrival of migratory waterfowl amplifies infection prevalence of local circulating LPAIVs (Verhagen et al 2015;Lisovski et al 2018).…”