Are Wild Birds Important in the Transport of Arthropod-borne Viruses?

Abstract

Abstract.— The encephalitic arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) can cause a variety of serious human and wildlife diseases, including eastern equine encephalomyelitis, western equine encephalomyelitis, St. Louis encephalitis, Japanese encephalitis, and West Nile neuroinvasive disease. Understanding how these pathogens are dispersed through the environment is important both in managing their health-related impact and in interpreting patterns of their genetic variability over wide areas. Because many arboviruses infect wild birds and can be amplified to a level that makes birds infectious to insect vectors, numerous workers have suggested that the movements of migratory birds represent a major way that these viruses can be transported on a local, continental, and intercontinental scale. Virus transport by birds can, in theory, explain the colonization of new geographic regions by arboviruses, why some arboviruses in widely separated areas are genetically similar, and how arboviruses annually recur in temp...