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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Spread Of Plague Among Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs Is Associated With Colony Spatial Characteristics, Christopher Frey, Tammi L. Johnson, Jack Cully Jr., Sharon K. Collinge, Chris Ray, Brett Sandercock
Spread Of Plague Among Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs Is Associated With Colony Spatial Characteristics, Christopher Frey, Tammi L. Johnson, Jack Cully Jr., Sharon K. Collinge, Chris Ray, Brett Sandercock
Faculty Publications
Sylvatic plague (Yersinia pestis) is an exotic pathogen that is highly virulent in black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) and causes widespread colony losses and individual mortality rates >95%. We investigated colony spatial characteristics that may influence inter-colony transmission of plague at 3 prairie dog colony complexes in the Great Plains. The 4 spatial characteristics we considered include: colony size, Euclidean distance to nearest neighboring colony, colony proximity index, and distance to nearest drainage (dispersal) corridor. We used multi-state mark–recapture models to determine the relationship between these colony characteristics and probability of plague transmission among prairie dog colonies. Annual mapping of …