Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Diverse fish reduce coral disease
BBC News - news.bbc.co.uk
29 Sep 2009
R Black
Photo credit: LJ Raymundo

Coral reefs where lots of different kinds of fish swim are healthier than overfished ones, scientists have shown.

Researchers showed a reduced incidence of coral disease in areas of the Philippines where fishing is banned, compared with neighbouring areas.

They conclude that some types of fish probably carry coral diseases.

Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) they suggest that when predatory fish are absent, disease-carrying species thrive.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article

Functionally diverse reef-fish communities ameliorate coral disease. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2009 Oct 6; 106(40): 17067-17070.

EEE hits more local pheasants
Seacoast Media Group - www.seacoastonline.com
29 Sep 2009
D Choate

Location: York County, Maine, USA - Map It

A second incidence of Eastern equine encephalitis in birds has been found in York County, and public health officials are recommending the public take steps to protect against mosquito bites.

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Maine Department of Agriculture and the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife announced Monday that a pheasant flock in York County has been confirmed to have been found with the disease, which is can cause severe symptoms and sometimes death in humans and kills most of the horses it afflicts.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Evolutionary Origins Of Prion Disease Gene Uncovered
Science Daily - www.sciencedaily.com
29 Sep 2009

A University of Toronto-led team has uncovered the evolutionary ancestry of the prion gene, which may reveal new understandings of how the prion protein causes diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as "mad cow disease."

Diseased prion proteins are responsible for the fatal neurodegenerative Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans, and BSE, scrapie and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in livestock. Overall, this work holds promise for efforts to reveal the physiological function of members of the prion protein family and may provide insights into the origins and underlying constraints of the conformational changes associated with prion diseases.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article

Evolutionary Descent of Prion Genes from the ZIP Family of Metal Ion Transporters. PLoS ONE. 2009 Sep 28; 4(9): e7208.

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