Animal Sciences Commons^™

Factors Influencing Aquatic Invertebrate Diversity In Mine Pit Lakes Along The Mesabi Iron Range, Jeremy Laurich

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Restoration of mine pit lakes for recreation is going to be very important for the future of Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range area. As many as 250 lakes will need to be restored in the future along this 100-kilometer-long swath of mining country. Information regarding the organisms that currently inhabit these lakes is important for future restorations to be a success. The focus of this study was to identify the types of aquatic invertebrates present in pit lakes and to identify some of the factors that influence their abundance and diversity. During this study, invertebrate samples were taken along the shore …

Is There A Relationship Between Aquatic Vegetation And Amphipod Stocking Mortality?, Alaina Taylor

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Amphipod occurrence and abundance has declined in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR). Wildlife managers have stocked prairie pothole wetlands with Gammarus lacustris since 2018 to establish self-sustaining populations. G. lacustris have been detected in only 2 of 22 stocked basins, suggesting that they have died or failed to reproduce in most stocking attempts. Aquatic plant surveys were conducted in stocked wetlands and compared to data from surveys of wetlands with naturally occurring populations to understand if G. lacustris would be expected to survive in stocked wetlands based on characteristics of the aquatic vegetation communities. SAV coverage was significantly higher in …

Exploring The Genetic Variability Of Zebra Mussels Dreisenna Polymoprha, Maxwell Carr

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Zebra Mussels Dreisenna polymorpha are one of the most well-known invasive species here in the United States. This species can take over watersheds very quickly, causing damage to both the ecosystem and man-made structures. The basic physical behavior of this species has been well documented, but the invasive North American Zebra Mussel is much more aggressive and therefore causes more damage in the Great Lakes region compared to its native waters. Genetic variation may be playing a very large role in how and why D. polymorpha is causing such large problems for stakeholders in the United States. This review cites …

Effectiveness Of Endothall Treatment In Reducing Potamogeton Crispus In Lake Julia, Jake Sorensen

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Curly leaf pondweed Potamogeton crispus, is a submerged aquatic plant non-native to North America. It was most likely introduced when common carp Cyprinus carpio were intentionally brought to the Midwest. Endothall is an aquatic herbicide commonly used to control curlyleaf pondweed in lakes. This study focused on collecting data from Lake Julia in Sherburne County, MN. Lake Julia is treated annually in the spring to control curlyleaf pondweed. The results show treatment areas saw a significant increase in vegetation density compared to control areas (P < 0.01). Changes in percent vegetation coverage by date were insignificant (P = 0.24). No significant signs of fish kills were observed. Because this study looked at overall vegetation coverage instead of specifically curlyleaf pondweed, we cannot conclude the increase in vegetation coverage was from curlyleaf pondweed alone. Based on the results from Poovey et al. (2002) we would expect lower vegetation coverage in treatment areas instead of the increased vegetation coverage observed in our study. This suggests the possibility that the endothall treatment successfully killed curlyleaf pondweed in treated areas, which allowed for new growth of submerged aquatic plants to take place as water temperatures increased.

An Examination Of Limiting Factors Of Chrysemys Picta Bellii (Western Painted Turtles) In The Lower Willamette River Basin, Oregon, James P. Holley

Environmental Science and Management Professional Master's Project Reports

Oregon’s two native freshwater turtle species, Chrysemys picta bellii (Western painted turtle) and Actinemys marmorata (Northwestern pond turtle), have seen significantly reduced population sizes since the founding of Portland in 1845, with estimates of up to 90% for A. marmorata. This project examined turtle nesting activity at 25 sites across a range of turtle populations and habitats around the Lower Willamette River Basin. All discovered turtle nesting activity was found in areas of high solar exposure. We found 93% of over 400 nest attempts to have been depredated across the 25 sites, well above most other reported rates. At …

Changes In The Philippine Coastal Environment, Karl H. Szekielda, Ma. Aileen Leah G. Guzman

Environmental Science Faculty Publications

Global warming is progressing at a faster speed than has been estimated earlier in climate forecasting, and the ocean responds rather quickly to global temperature increase. This study uses remotely sensed data that were accessed from the System for Multidisciplinary Research and Applications (NASA Giovanni) to study environmental change in the Philippines’ coast. Monthly averaged sea surface temperature series from around the Philippines indicate that the Philippines follow the global trend in ocean temperature increase and show the increase of about 0.50C within two decades. Despite the high variability in temperature, the linear regressions displayed for all seasons show an …

Effects Of Harvest Regulations And Post-Release Hooking Mortality On Walleye Populations In South Dakota, Cade Lyon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Harvest regulations are commonly implemented to manipulate fisheries stocks. By regulating the size and number of fish that are harvested by anglers, managers are able to meet the goals and needs of regions. However, these management actions come with the potential for negative consequences. Overexploitation due to less restrictive harvest regulations can cause collapses in fisheries populations. In addition, indirect consequences such as hooking mortality brought on by length-based regulations can also be detrimental to populations. In this study, I investigated the effects of various harvest regulations on Walleye populations in three western South Dakota irrigation reservoirs: Angostura, Belle Fourche, …

Soil Response Of Helicopter Liming In The Monongahela National Forest, Jarrett Douglas Fowler

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Soils in the Monongahela National Forest (MNF) are acidic due to sandstone parent material, acid deposition, uptake of base cations by vegetation, and release of organic acids by organic matter (OM) decomposition. Increases in soil acidity have caused declines in forest health and changed species composition and nutrient status. Liming can neutralize soil acidity, but no large-scale liming projects have been done on acid forest soils in the USA. In anticipation of acquiring funding for a proposed liming project in the MNF, in 2007 and 2009 10 sites were selected to sample and analyze soils before lime was applied. In …

Surveys For Ticks On Wildlife Hosts And In The Environment At Asian Longhorned Tick (Haemaphysalis Longicornis)-Positive Sites In Virginia And New Jersey, 2018, Seth A. White, Sarah N. Bevins, Mark G. Ruder, David Shaw, Stacey L. Vigil, Adam Randall, Thomas J. Deliberto, Kristen Dominguez, Alec T. Thompson, James W. Mertins, Jeffrey T. Alfred, Michael J. Yabsley

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Haemaphysalis longicornis, the Asian longhorned tick (ALT), is native to eastern Asia, but it has become invasive in several countries, including Australia, New Zealand and recently in the eastern United States (US). To identify wild mammal and avian host species in the US, we conducted active wildlife surveillance in two states with known ALT infestations (Virginia and New Jersey). In addition, we conducted environmental surveys in both states. These surveillance efforts resulted in detection of 51 ALTinfested individuals from seven wildlife species, including raccoon (Procyon lotor), Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), red fox (Vulpes vulpes …

Estimating Wildlife Strike Costs At Us Airports: A Machine Learning Approach, Levi Altringer, Jordan Navin, Michael J. Begier, Stephanie A. Shwiff, Aaron M. Anderson

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Current lower bound estimates of the economic burden of wildlife strikes make use of mean cost assignment to impute missing values in the National Wildlife Strike Database (NWSD). The accuracy of these estimates, however, are undermined by the skewed nature of reported cost data and fail to account for differences in observed strike characteristics—e.g., type of aircraft, size of aircraft, type of damage, size of animal struck, etc. This paper makes use of modern machine learning techniques to provide a more accurate measure of the strike-related costs that accrue to the US civil aviation industry. We estimate that wildlife strikes …

First Record Of Blacknape Large-Eye Bream Gymnocranius Satoi (Perciformes: Lethrinidae) In The Philippines, Nicko Amor Flores, Jade Tifany Rey, Jeffrey T. Williams, Kent Carpenter, Mudjekeewis Santos

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The Philippines has been regarded as the center of the center of marine shorefish biodiversity, having the highest number of fish species per square area in the world. The blacknape large-eye bream, Gymnocranius satoi, has been reported to occur from Southern Japan, Taiwan to Northwestern Australia and to the Coral Sea, but has not previously been recorded from the Philippines. From 2011 – 2019, the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI) collaborated with the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution (NMNH/SI), USA, and the Old Dominion University (ODU), Virgina, USA, to inventory all commercial fish …

Cascading Effects: Insights From The U.S. Long Term Ecological Research Network, Christie A. Bahlai, Clarisse Hart, Maria T. Kavanaugh, Jeffrey D. White, Roger W. Ruess, Todd J. Brinkman, Hugh W. Ducklow, David R. Foster, William R. Fraser, Hélène Genet, Peter M. Groffman, Stephen K. Hamilton, Jill F. Johnstone, Knut Kielland, Douglas A. Landis, Michelle C. Mack, Orlando Sarnelle, Jonathan R. Thompson

Advanced Science Research Center

Ecosystems across the United States are changing in complex and unpredictable ways and analysis of these changes requires coordinated, long-term research. This paper is a product of a synthesis effort of the U.S. National Science Foundation funded Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network addressing the LTER core research area of “populations and communities.” This analysis revealed that each LTER site had at least one compelling “story” about what their site would look like in 50–100 yr. As the stories were prepared, themes emerged, and the stories were group into papers along five themes: state change, connectivity, resilience, time lags, and cascading …

Effects Of Large Wood Restoration On Coho Salmon In A Northern California Watershed: A Before-After-Control-Impact Experiment, Natalie B. Okun

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Substantial time, money, and effort are invested in river and stream restoration projects to aid in the recovery of imperiled salmonid populations, but there is little evidence that these efforts have had lasting positive impacts on juvenile fish growth and survival. To assess the effectiveness of large woody debris (LWD) restoration, which is one of the most common restoration practices, I evaluated the growth and survival response of endangered Central California Coast coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) in a paired watershed before-after impact-control (BACI) study. To determine if LWD supplementation influenced coho salmon growth and survival, two neighboring, similar …

Diets Of Double-Crested Cormorants In The Lake Winnebago System, Wisconsin, Ryan P. Koenigs, Daniel J. Dembkowski, Charles D. Lovell, Daniel A. Isermann, Adam D. Nickel

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Double-crested cormorant Phalacrocorox auritus Lesson (cormorant) populations have increased throughout the Great Lakes region of North America causing concern related to the impact of cormorant predation on fish communities. A recent decline in yellow perch Perca flavescens (Mitchill) abundance within the Lake Winnebago System, Wisconsin, USA, prompted an assessment of cormorant diets to evaluate potential effects of cormorant predation on the sportfish community. Diets were collected from 883 cormorants (417 from Lake Winnebago and 466 from Lake Butte des Morts) between 2015 and 2017. Cormorant diets on both waterbodies consisted mostly of freshwater drum Aplodinotus grunniens Rafinesque and gizzard shad …

Records Of Hippoboscidae From Mongolian Birds Of Prey With Checklist, Update, Matthias Jentzsch, Benjamin Meissner, Nayamsuren Batsaikhan, Annegret Stubbe, Michael Stubbe

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

The hippoboscid species Ornithophila gestroi has been rediscovered from Mongolia. It is the easternmost of all the known occurrences. Specimens were collected from Amur Falcon Falco amurensis, Saker Falcon Falco cherrug, Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni, Eurasian Hobby, Falco subbuteo, Common Kestrel Falco tinnunculus Linnaeus, 1758 and Black Kite Milvus migrans in a breeding area located in southern Mongolia. Amur Falcon, Eurasian Hobby and Black Kite were identified as hosts of O. gestroi for the first time.

Evidence On The Effectiveness Of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (Suas) As A Survey Tool For North American Terrestrial, Vertebrate Animals: A Systematic Map Protocol, Jared A. Elmore, Michael F. Curran, Kristine O. Evans, Sathishkumar Samiappan, Meilun Zhou, Morgan B. Pfeiffer, Bradley F. Blackwell, Raymond B. Iglay

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Background: Small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) are replacing or supplementing manned aircraft and groundbased surveys in many animal monitoring situations due to better coverage at finer spatial and temporal resolutions, access, cost, bias, impacts, safety, efficiency, and logistical benefits. Various sUAS models and sensors are available with varying features and usefulness depending on survey goals. However, justification for selection of sUAS and sensors are not typically offered in published literature and existing reviews do not adequately cover past and current sUAS applications for animal monitoring nor their associated sUAS model and sensor technologies, taxonomic and geographic scope, flight conditions and …

Recolonizing Carnivores: Is Cougar Predation Behaviorally Mediated By Bears?, Kristin N. Engebretsen, Jon P. Beckmann, Carl W. Lackey, Alyson M. Andreasen, Cody Schroeder, Pat Jackson, Julie K. Young

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Conservation and management efforts have resulted in population increases and range expansions for some apex predators, potentially changing trophic cascades and foraging behavior. Changes in sympatric carnivore and dominant scavenger populations provide opportunities to assess how carnivores affect one another. Cougars (Puma concolor) were the apex predator in the Great Basin of Nevada, USA, for over 80 years. Black bears (Ursus americanus) have recently recolonized the area and are known to heavily scavenge on cougar kills. To evaluate the impacts of sympatric, recolonizing bears on cougar foraging behavior in the Great Basin, we investigated kill sites of 31 cougars between …

Advancing Applied Research In Conservation Criminology Through The Evaluation Of Corruption Prevention, Enhancing Compliance, And Reducing Recidivism, Jessica S. Kahler, Joseph W. Rivera, Zachary T. Steele, Pilar Morales-Giner, Christian J. Rivera, Carol F. Ahossin, Ashpreet Kaur, Diane J. Episcopio-Sturgeon

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Concomitant with an increase in the global illegal wildlife trade has been a substantial increase in research within traditional conservation-based sciences and conservation and green criminology. While the integration of criminological theories and methods into the wildlife conservation context has advanced our understanding of and practical responses to illegal wildlife trade, there remain discrepancies between the number of empirical vs. conceptual studies and a disproportionate focus on a few select theories, geographical contexts, and taxonomic groups. We present three understudied or novel applications of criminology and criminal justice research within the fields of fisheries, forestry, and wildlife conservation. First, we …

Spatial Transferability Of Expert Opinion Models For American Beaver Habitat, Isidro Barela, Leslie M. Burger, Guiming Wang, Kristine O. Evans, Qingmin Meng, Jimmy D. Taylor

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Species distribution models and habitat suitability models (HSMs) have become a popular tool in the conservation of biodiversity. However, the ability to predict species spatial distributions at sites beyond the data source sites (i.e., spatial transferability) is critical for the applications of HSMs in the management and conservation of rare or endangered species. The main objective of our study was to assess the predictive performance and spatial transferability of expert opinion models (EOMs). To build EOMs, we identified through extensive literature reviews 17 key landscape variables to characterize habitat use by American beaver (Castor canadensis). We developed 31 pairwise opinion …

Evidence For Continental-Scale Dispersal Of Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria By Landfill-Foraging Gulls, Christina A. Ahlstrom, Mariëlle L. Van Toor, Hanna Woksepp, Jeffrey C. Chandler, John A. Reed, Andrew B. Reeves, Jonas Waldenström, Alan B. Franklin, David C. Douglas, Jonas Bonnedahl, Andrew M. Ramey

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Anthropogenic inputs into the environment may serve as sources of antimicrobial resistant bacteria and alter the ecology and population dynamics of synanthropic wild animals by providing supplemental forage. In this study, we used a combination of phenotypic and genomic approaches to characterize antimicrobial resistant indicator bacteria, animal telemetry to describe host movement patterns, and a novel modeling approach to combine information fromthese diverse data streams to investigate the acquisition and long-distance dispersal of antimicrobial resistant bacteria by landfill-foraging gulls. Our results provide evidence that gulls acquire antimicrobial resistant bacteria from anthropogenic sources, which they may subsequently disperse across and between …

Evaluating Potential Effects Of Solar Power Facilities On Wildlife From An Animal Behavior Perspective, Rachel Y. Chock, Barbara Clucas, Elizabeth K. Peterson, Bradley Blackwell, Daniel T. Blumstein, Kathleen Church, Esteban Fernández-Juricic, Gabriel Francescoli, Alison L. Greggor, Paul Kemp, Gabriela M. Pinho, Peter M. Sanzenbacher, Bruce A. Schulte, Pauline Toni

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Solar power is a renewable energy source with great potential to help meet increasing global energy demands and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. However, research is scarce on how solar facilities affect wildlife. With input from professionals in ecology, conservation, and energy, we conducted a research-prioritization process and identified key questions needed to better understand impacts of solar facilities on wildlife. We focused on animal behavior, which can be used to identify population responses before mortality or other fitness consequences are documented. Behavioral studies can also offer approaches to understand the mechanisms leading to negative interactions (e.g., collision, singeing, …

Multi-Level Movement Response Of Invasive Wild Pigs (Sus Scrofa) To Removal, Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau, Peter E. Schlichting, David A. Keiter, Joshua B. Smith, John C. Kilgo, George Wittemyer, Kurt C. Vercauteren, James C. Beasley, Kim M. Pepin

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

BACKGROUND: Lethal removal of invasive species, such as wild pigs (Sus scrofa), is often the most efficient approach for reducing their negative impacts. Wild pigs are one of the most widespread and destructive invasive mammals in the USA. Lethal management techniques are a key approach for wild pigs and can alter wild pig spatial behavior, but it is unclear how wild pigs respond to the most common removal technique, trapping.We investigated the spatial behavior of wild pigs following intensive removal of conspecifics via trapping at three sites within the Savannah River Site, SC, USA. We evaluated changes in …

Food Habits Of Wintering Double-Crested Cormorants In The Mississippi Delta, Terrel W. Christie, Brian S. Dorr, J. Brian Davis, Luke A. Roy, Carole R. Engle, Katie Hanson-Dorr, Anita M. Kelly

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Given its ubiquity, it is not surprising that agriculture, including fin fish aquaculture, contributes to food webs worldwide and is used by numerous wildlife for foraging and meeting other needs. Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) impact United States commercial aquaculture and are considered the primary avian predator in catfish (Ictalurus spp.) aquaculture facilities in the Mississippi Delta. Recent changes in aquaculture practices, regulatory policies, and decreased overall hectares in production prompted this study that assessed cormorant consumption of catfish in relation to their night roosts through surveys and diet analysis. Cormorants were collected from night roosts from October …

Principal Economic Effects Of Cormorant Predation On Catfish Farms, Carole R. Engle, Terrel W. Christie, Brian S. Dorr, Ganesh Kumar, Luke A. Roy, Anita M. Kelly

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Substantial economic losses of farmed catfish to fish-eating birds such as the double-crested cormorant, Phalacrocorax auritus, continue to be reported on U.S. catfish farms. An economic analysis was conducted of the on-farm effects of both the increased expenditures to scare fish-eating birds from catfish farms and of the value of the catfish that were consumed by cormorants. A survey was conducted of U.S. catfish farmers in the Delta region of Mississippi and Arkansas, to obtain farm-level data on expenditures to scare birds. Estimations of the lost revenue from catfish consumed by cormorants were developed from a concurrent study on …

Environmental Correlates Of Genetic Variation In The Invasive European Starling In North America, Natalie R. Hofmeister, Scott J. Werner, Irby J. Lovette

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Populations of invasive species that colonize and spread in novel environments may differentiate both through demographic processes and local selection. European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) were introduced to New York in 1890 and subsequently spread throughout North America, becoming one of the most widespread and numerous bird species on the continent. Genome-wide comparisons across starling individuals and populations can identify demographic and/or selective factors that facilitated this rapid and successful expansion. We investigated patterns of genomic diversity and differentiation using reduced-representation genome sequencing of 17 winter-season sampling sites. Consistent with this species' high dispersal rate and rapid expansion history, …

Continental-Scale Dynamics Of Avian Influenza In U.S. Waterfowl Are Driven By Demography, Migration, And Temperature, Erin E. Gorsich, Colleen T. Webb, Andrew A. Merton, Jennifer A. Hoeting, Ryan S. Miller, Matthew Farnsworth, Seth R. Swafford, Thomas J. Deliberto, Kerri Pedersen, Alan B. Franklin, Robert G. Mclean, Kenneth R. Wilson, Paul Doherty

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Emerging diseases of wildlife origin are increasingly spilling over into humans and domestic animals. Surveillance and risk assessments for transmission between these populations are informed by a mechanistic understanding of the pathogens in wildlife reservoirs. For avian influenza viruses (AIV), much observational and experimental work in wildlife has been conducted at local scales, yet fully understanding their spread and distribution requires assessing the mechanisms acting at both local, (e.g., intrinsic epidemic dynamics), and continental scales, (e.g., long-distance migration). Here, we combined a large, continental-scale data set on low pathogenic, Type A AIV in the United States with a novel network-based …

Embracing Dynamic Models For Gene Drive Management, Andrew J. Golnar, Emily W. Ruell, Alun L. Lloyd, Kim M. Pepin

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Robust methods of predicting how gene drive systems will interact with ecosystems is essential for safe deployment of gene drive technology. We describe how quantitative tools can reduce risk uncertainty, streamline empirical research, guide risk management, and promote cross-sector collaboration throughout the process of gene drive technology development and implementation.

Gene drive technologies, although diverse in design and mode of action, are molecular architectures that promote the transmission of genetic information between generations. In theory, the release of one gene-drive-modified organism (GDMO) has the potential to irreversibly alter species, ecosystems, and environmental processes at a global scale (although in practice …

Temporal And Spatial Blood Feeding Patterns Of Urban Mosquitoes In The San Juan Metropolitan Area, Puerto Rico, Matthew W. Hopken, Limarie J. Reyes-Torres, Nicole Scavo, Antoinette J. Piaggio, Zaid Abdo, Daniel Taylor, James Pierce, Donald A. Yee

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Simple Summary: Understanding the biodiversity of urban ecosystems is critical for management of invasive and pest species, conserving native species, and disease control. Mosquitoes (Culicidae) are ubiquitous and abundant in urban ecosystems, and rely on blood meals taken from vertebrates. We used DNA from freshly blood-fed mosquitoes to characterize the diversity of vertebrate host species in the San Juan Metropolitan Area, Puerto Rico. We collected two mosquito species that fed on a variety of vertebrates. Culex quinquefasciatus fed on 17 avian taxa (81.2% of blood meals), seven mammalian taxa (17.9%), and one reptilian taxon (0.85%). Aedes aegypti blood meals were …

Population Genomic Transformations Induced By Isolation Of Wild Bird Avian Influenza Viruses (Orthomyxoviridae) In Embryonated Chicken Eggs, Matthew W. Hopken, Antoinette J. Piaggio, K. L. Pabilonia, James Pierce, Theodore Anderson, Courtney Pierce, Zaid Abdo

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Isolation and cultivation of wild-type viruses in model organism cells or tissues is standard practice in virology. Oftentimes, the virus host species is distantly related to the species from which the culture system was developed. Thus, virus culture in these tissues and cells basically constitutes a host jump, which can lead to genomic changes through genetic drift and/or adaptation to the culture system. We directly sequenced 70 avian influenza virus (Orthomyxoviridae) genomes from oropharyngeal/cloacal swabs collected from wild bird species and paired virus isolates propagated from the same samples following isolation in specific-pathogen-free embryonated chicken eggs. The data were analyzed …

Variation In Angiostrongylus Cantonensis Infection In Definitive And Intermediate Hosts In Hawaii, A Global Hotspot Of Rat Lungworm Disease, Chris Niebuhr, Shane R. Siers, Israel Leinbach, Lisa M. Kaluna, Susan I. Jarvi

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Angiostrongylus cantonensis (rat lungworm) is a tropical and subtropical parasitic nematode, with infections in humans causing angiostrongyliasis (rat lungworm disease), characterized by eosinophilic meningitis. Hawaii has been identified as a global hotspot of infection, with recent reports of high infection rates in humans, as well as rat definitive and snail intermediate hosts. This study investigated variation in A. cantonensis infection, both prevalence and intensity, in wild populations of two species of rats (Rattus exulans and R. rattus) and one species of snail (Parmarion martensi). An overall infection prevalence of 86.2% was observed in P. martensi and …