Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Ocean Acidification Could Have Broad Effects On Marine Ecosystems
ScienceDaily - www.sciencedaily.com (Source: University of California - Santa Cruz)
18 Dec 2008
Photo credit: iStockphoto/Nancy Nehring

Concern about increasing ocean acidification has often focused on its potential effects on coral reefs, but broader disruptions of biological processes in the oceans may be more significant, according to Donald Potts, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an expert in coral reef ecology and marine biodiversity. . . . "It's not just a question of coral reefs, and it's not just a question of calcification," he said. "What we are potentially looking at are disruptions of developmental processes and of populations and communities on many scales."

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African thicket rat malaria linked to virulent human form
EurekAlert - www.eurekalert.org (Source: American Museum of Natural History)
22 Dec 2008

Amplifying entire mitochondrial genomes yields new insight into evolution of malaria

Even though the most deadly form of malaria for humans, Plasmodium falciparum, has been linked to malaria found in chimpanzees, this group has been fairly isolated on the malarial family tree—until now. A new phylogenetic analysis from the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History reveals that malarial parasites found in tree-dwelling rats share a close evolutionary relationship with P. falciparum and Plasmodium reichenowi. The analysis is based on amplification of entire mitochondrial genomes of malarial parasites that use humans, rodents, birds, and lizards as their hosts.

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Cited Journal Article
>>>Molecular systematics of the three mitochondrial protein-coding genes of malaria parasites: Corroborative and new evidence for the origins of human malaria. Mitochondrial DNA. 2008 Dec 11. [ePub ahead of print].

New Vaccine Protects Monkeys From Pneumonic Plague
ScienceDaily - www.sciencedaily.com (Source: American Society for Microbiology)
21 Dec 2008

In a new study researchers from the University of Chicago, Illinois and the Lovelace Biomedical and Environmental Research Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico developed a vaccine incorporating the protein V10 and found that it protected macaques from lethal pneumonic plague and may have implications for use in humans. Yersinia pestis is the causative agent of pneumonic plague infections in humans. Recent wildlife studies indicate that plague is rampant among rodent populations in the southwestern United States, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, central and southern Africa as well as South America where humans are highly susceptible to infection.

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Cited Journal Article
>>>Immunization with recombinant V10 protects cynomolgus macaques from lethal pneumonic plague. Infection and Immunity,. Infection and Immunity. 2008 Dec; 76(12): 5588-5597.

Ky. HPV researchers tackle similar manatee disease
Lexington Herald-Leader - www.kentucky.com
22 Dec 2008
S Vos

Two Kentucky researchers who helped develop a vaccine to thwart a sexually transmitted disease in humans are using some of that knowledge to help an unlikely group of patients — manatees. More than 15 years ago, Dr. A. Bennett Jenson and Shin-je Ghim of the University of Louisville were part of a team that helped develop a vaccine for the human papilloma virus, which causes cervical cancer. When a similar virus was identified in manatees, they were asked to help. Ben Jenson, a pathologist, and Ghim, a microbiologist, first got involved in 1998, about two years after wart-like lesions were discovered on manatees in captivity. At the time, the researchers didn't really know what manatees were.

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Buck at Jefferson County preserve had chronic wasting disease
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - www.jsonline.com
19 Dec 2008
L Berquist
Area: Jefferson County, Wisconsin, USA - Map It

A 7-year-old buck from a Jefferson County hunting preserve has tested positive for chronic wasting disease, state agriculture officials reported Friday. The white-tailed deer was killed Dec. 1 as part of an effort by the owner of the 53-acre preserve to cull his herd and repopulate it with new stock, said Donna Gilson, a spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. Two deer remain on the preserve and will be killed. They have been quarantined by State Veterinarian Robert Ehlenfeldt. Gilson said the agriculture department will trace any possible movement of deer from the preserve to other captive facilities.

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OTHER WILDLIFE RELATED NEWS
Photo credit: Guardian - The week in wildlife