Resource Selection by Wild and Ranched White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) during the Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease Virus (EHDV) Transmission Season in Florida

Abstract

Epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV) causes serious disease in wild and privately ranched white-tailed deer (Odocoileusvirginianus) in the United States. In Florida, there is high EHDV prevalence, yet no treatments. There are few management strategies for the disease due to limited knowledge of virus–vector–host interactions. We conducted a telemetry study on white-tailed deer to examine resource use by wild and ranched animals in the Florida panhandle during the 2016 transmission risk period. We built generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) to estimate resource selection and map habitat preferences for wild and ranched deer in the study area to reveal how second-order selection may relate to higher disease prevalence in ranched deer. Wild deer preferred areas closer to tertiary roads and supplementary food sources but farther from permanent water. Ranched deer selected bottomland mixed forest and areas closer to tertiary roads, supplementary food sources, and permanent water. Ranched deer behaviors may increase the likelihood of EHDV vector encounters, as these deer selected preferred habitats of several putative vector species, which may increase vector blood meal success and viral transmission risk. Disparate resource selection behaviors may be a factor in observed differential EHDV exposure risk between ranched and wild white-tailed deer in Florida.

Serological survey of epizootic hemorrhagic disease in European bison in Poland in 2017-2018

“…Globally, EHDV has been reported in both domestic cattle and wildlife in North and South America, Africa, and Asia (8,9,13,14,23,40). It has also been found in countries neighboring Europe, such as Turkey (3).…”

Culicoides Midge Abundance across Years: Modeling Inter-Annual Variation for an Avian Feeder and a Candidate Vector of Hemorrhagic Diseases in Farmed Wildlife

“…Similar to previous work detailed in Dinh et al [34], the Euclidian distances from the nearest feeder and the nearest water body were included as proxies for the availability of potential blood meal hosts, such as WTD, and potential oviposition sites, respectively. Habitat type was included as unordered factor levels based on land cover data reported on the Cooperative Land Cover map (version 3.2) from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and the Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI) [41] and was reclassified as defined in Dinh et al [34,42] as upland pine covering 35.29% of the ranch, mixed hardwood pine covering 6.91% of the ranch, mixed bottomland hardwood covering 43.50% of the ranch, or rural/developed/pasture covering 14.29% of the ranch. A soil survey of the ranch was downloaded from the US Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Web Soil Survey application [43] and grouped by the Natural Drainage Class designation because Culicoides spp.…”

“…Soil types with Map Unit Symbols (MUSYMs) 6, 9, 31, and 36 were classified as well-drained, and soil types with MUSYMs 66, 86, and 88 were classified as poorly drained. Lastly, we included weekly utilization distributions (UD) [46,47] from 15 WTD, 1 fallow deer (Dama dama), and 1 Père David's deer (Elaphurus davidianus) that were collared in a previous study on the same ranch during the midge sampling effort [42,48] to represent the probability of animal presence in the study environment regardless of the environmental characteristics or proximity to feeders [34]. These species were confirmed as preferred bloodmeals for midges on this ranch [38].…”