Wildlife Disease News Digest

TOP STORIES

Is Dilution the Solution?
Scienceonline - scienceline.org
04 Jun 2009
L Peeples
Photo credit: Lynne Peeples

Shannon Duerr counts excrement. She kneels on the forest floor and, between picking hungry ticks off her arm, carefully tallies a pile of at least ten pellets she has collected. Since more than half of the pellets fall inside a hundred-square-foot circle she has encompassed with a short metal pole and a long piece of string, Duerr estimates that at least one white-tailed deer has passed through here since the winter’s first freeze.

This part of upstate New York, Dutchess County, has one of the highest rates of Lyme disease in the country. Duerr is part of a research team that is trying to understand why the region is such a hotbed for the disease, which is carried by animals and can sicken humans. Clad in white suits smeared with deer feces, she and other scientists from the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies in nearby Millbrook, New York are busy calculating the local deer population as a prelude for conducting an unusual experiment.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Related News
>>>First Bird in Illinois Tests Positive for West Nile Virus - La Salle County, Illinois, USA - Map It

Bee-killing Parasite Genome Sequenced
ScienceDaily - www.sciencedaily.com (Source: Public Library of Science
05 Jun 2009
Photo credit: David Cappaert, Michigan State University, Bugwood.org.

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have sequenced the genome of a parasite that can kill honey bees. Nosema ceranae is one of many pathogens suspected of contributing to the current bee population decline, termed colony collapse disorder (CCD).

In 2006, CCD began devastating commercial beekeeping operations, with some beekeepers reporting losses of up to 90 percent, according to the USDA. Researchers believe CCD may be the result of a combination of pathogens, parasites and stress factors, but the cause remains elusive. At stake are honey bees that play a valuable part in a $15 billion industry of crop farming in the United States.

The microsporidian Nosema is a fungus-related microbe that produces spores that bees consume when they forage. Infection spreads from their digestive tract to other tissues. Within weeks, colonies are either wiped out or lose much of their strength.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article
>>>Genomic Analyses of the Microsporidian Nosema ceranae, an Emergent Pathogen of Honey Bees. PLoS Pathogens, 2009; [Epub ahead of print]

Govt may move to stop spread of abalone virus
ABC News - www.abc.net.au
05 Jun 2009
Area: Victoria, Australia - Map It

The Victorian Government is considering closing more waters to fishing off Victoria's south west coast to control a deadly abalone virus.

The virus ganglioneuritis has wiped out abalone stocks in the region over the past three years.

The Government wants to close the area between White Cliffs and Aire River, near Cape Otway, to all fishing for up to three months.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Photo credit: ScienceDaily