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Ecological processes underlying the emergence of novel enzootic cycles: Arboviruses in the neotropics as a case study.

ABSTRACT: Pathogens originating from wildlife (zoonoses) pose a significant public health burden, comprising the majority of emerging infectious diseases. Efforts to control and prevent zoonotic disease have traditionally focused on animal-to-human transmission, or "spillover." However, in the modern era, increasing international mobility and commerce facilitate the spread of infected humans, nonhuman animals (hereafter animals), and their products worldwide, thereby increasing the risk that zoonoses will be introduced to new geographic areas. Imported zoonoses can potentially "spill back" to infect local wildlife-a danger magnified by urbanization and other anthropogenic pressures that increase contacts between human and wildlife populations. In this way, humans can function as vectors, dispersing zoonoses from their ancestral enzootic systems to establish reservoirs elsewhere in novel animal host populations. Once established, these enzootic cycles are largely unassailable by standard control measures and have the potential to feed human epidemics. Understanding when and why translocated zoonoses establish novel enzootic cycles requires disentangling ecologically complex and stochastic interactions between the zoonosis, the human population, and the natural ecosystem. In this Review, we address this challenge by delineating potential ecological mechanisms affecting each stage of enzootic establishment-wildlife exposure, enzootic infection, and persistence-applying existing ecological concepts from epidemiology, invasion biology, and population ecology. We ground our discussion in the neotropics, where four arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) of zoonotic origin-yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses-have separately been introduced into the human population. This paper is a step towards developing a framework for predicting and preventing novel enzootic cycles in the face of zoonotic translocations.

SUBMITTER: Guth S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7425862 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Ecological processes underlying the emergence of novel enzootic cycles: Arboviruses in the neotropics as a case study.

Guth Sarah S Hanley Kathryn A KA Althouse Benjamin M BM Boots Mike M

PLoS neglected tropical diseases 20200813 8

Pathogens originating from wildlife (zoonoses) pose a significant public health burden, comprising the majority of emerging infectious diseases. Efforts to control and prevent zoonotic disease have traditionally focused on animal-to-human transmission, or "spillover." However, in the modern era, increasing international mobility and commerce facilitate the spread of infected humans, nonhuman animals (hereafter animals), and their products worldwide, thereby increasing the risk that zoonoses will ...[more]

PMID: 32790670

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Project description:The Greater Everglades Region of South Florida is one of the largest natural wetlands and the only subtropical ecosystem found in the continental United States. Mosquitoes are seasonally abundant in the Everglades where several potentially pathogenic mosquito-borne arboviruses are maintained in natural transmission cycles involving vector-competent mosquitoes and reservoir-competent vertebrate hosts. The fragile nature of this ecosystem is vulnerable to many sources of environmental change, including a wetlands restoration project, climate change, invasive species and residential development. In this study, we obtained baseline data on the distribution and abundance of both mosquitos and arboviruses occurring in the southern Everglades region during the summer months of 2013, when water levels were high, and in 2014, when water levels were low. A total of 367,060 mosquitoes were collected with CO2-baited CDC light traps at 105 collection sites stratified among the major landscape features found in Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, Fakahatchee State Park Preserve and Picayune State Forest, an area already undergoing restoration. A total of 2,010 pools of taxonomically identified mosquitoes were cultured for arbovirus isolation and identification. Seven vertebrate arboviruses were isolated: Everglades virus, Tensaw virus, Shark River virus, Gumbo Limbo virus, Mahogany Hammock virus, Keystone virus, and St. Louis encephalitis virus. Except for Tensaw virus, which was absent in 2013, the remaining viruses were found to be most prevalent in hardwood hammocks and in Fakahatchee, less prevalent in mangroves and pinelands, and absent in cypress and sawgrass. In contrast, in the summer of 2014 when water levels were lower, these arboviruses were far less prevalent and only found in hardwood hammocks, but Tensaw virus was present in cypress, sawgrass, pinelands, and a recently burned site. Major environmental changes are anticipated in the Everglades, many of which will result in increased water levels. How these might lead to the emergence of arboviruses potentially pathogenic to both humans and wildlife is discussed.

Dataset Information

Ecological processes underlying the emergence of novel enzootic cycles: Arboviruses in the neotropics as a case study.

Publications

Ecological processes underlying the emergence of novel enzootic cycles: Arboviruses in the neotropics as a case study.

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