2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference

March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH

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5/20/2019 | 3:15 PM - 3:30 PM | RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AND COMMUNITY ECOLOGY IN RANAVIRUS TRANSMISSION | 251 DE

RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AND COMMUNITY ECOLOGY IN RANAVIRUS TRANSMISSION

The dilution effect hypothesis suggests that more diverse communities constrain pathogen spread through several mechanisms and recent meta-analyses suggest that the dilution effect is common. However, few studies of diversity-disease relationships have addressed the role of physiochemical properties that can influence community assembly and affect host and pathogen physiology. We used a system characterized by a multi-host pathogen of freshwater vertebrates, ranavirus, and assemblages of amphibians in ephemeral wetlands to quantify the relative contributions of biotic and abiotic factors on infection risk. We characterized the amphibian communities for 20 ephemeral wetlands and investigated the relationship between amphibian communities and ranavirus prevalence. We captured over 30,000 individual amphibians representing 23 species and quantified presence of ranavirus in a subset. Overall, we see an epidemic of ranavirus in spring months that, based on boosted regression tree analyses, is driven by a combination of environmental variables and specific aspects of the amphibian community. Canopy cover and water and air temperature are the most important environmental factors driving ranavirus occurrence. While species richness has no influence on ranavirus prevalence, there is a relationship between the epidemic and increased abundance of highly competent hosts.

Amphibian
Wetland
Waterborne Pathogens

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Presenters/Authors

Austin Coleman (), University of Georgia, acolem12@uga.edu;