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Interspecific network centrality, host range and early‐life development are associated with wildlife hosts of Rift Valley fever virus
Author(s) -
Walsh M. G.,
Mor S. M.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
transboundary and emerging diseases
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.392
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1865-1682
pISSN - 1865-1674
DOI - 10.1111/tbed.12903
Subject(s) - host (biology) , wildlife , rift valley fever , interspecific competition , range (aeronautics) , centrality , biology , ecology , geography , virology , virus , materials science , mathematics , combinatorics , composite material
Rift Valley fever virus ( RVFV ) is responsible for a substantive disease burden in pastoralist communities and the agricultural sector in the African continent and Arabian Peninsula. Enzootic, epizootic and zoonotic RVFV transmission dynamics remain ill‐defined, particularly due to a poor understanding of the role of mammalian hosts in the epidemiology and infection ecology of this arbovirus. Using a piecewise structural equation model, this study sought to identify associations between biological and ecological characteristics of mammalian species and documented RVFV infection to highlight species‐level traits that may influence wildlife host status. Interspecific network centrality, size of species home range and reproductive life‐history traits were all associated with being an RVFV host. The identification of these species‐level characteristics may help to provide ecological context for the role of wildlife amplification hosts in the epidemiology of spillover to livestock and humans and may also help to identify specific points of vulnerability at the wildlife–livestock interface.