wildlife viral diseases - Aimee

Question 1

are viral infections a disease of wild animals considerations

Answer 1

do they truly cause infection or are they just carried around

Question 2

do endangered species and zoo animals go through bottle neck events

Answer 2

yes

Question 3

what is a genetic bottle neck event?

Answer 3

A genetic bottleneck occurs when a population is greatly reduced in size, limiting the genetic diversity of the species

Question 4

what do bottle necks lead to

Answer 4

immunosuppression - less genetics to pull from

Question 5

are there ecological consequences of viral infections

Answer 5

yes - regulatory effects of viruses on populations and biological control

Question 6

can turtles get herpesvirus?

Answer 6

yes

Question 7

do wildlife species have retroviruses?

Answer 7

yes

Question 8

does being infected with viral diseases have a cost?

Answer 8

yes - in swans infected with low pathogenicity avian influenza (LPAI) they’re less likely to eat more

Question 9

Costs of an immune response - does it reduce survival

Answer 9

yes - birds that were challenged with a toxic compound were less likely to fly back from where they migrated (dead)

Question 10

can bottle neck events cause inbreeding?

Answer 10

yes

Question 11

if an infection happens and there are decreased animals returning to the summer habitat, what are the genetic consequences?

Answer 11

fewer genes in the gene pool - higher interrelatedness/inbreeding

Question 12

do sea lions with more relatedness have increased chances of carcinomas and infection by helminths, and bacterial infections?

Answer 12

yes

Question 13

18% of mature sea lions that were found stranded along the Californian coast and died during rehabilitation had

Answer 13

histologically aggressive, widely metastatic genital transitional cell carcinomas

Question 14

does herpesvirus affect sea lions

Answer 14

yes! and infects reproductive tract and further impedes reproductive abilities, leading to even more interrelatedness

Question 15

name one species that’s undergone a bottleneck

Answer 15

cheetahs!

Question 16

does a bottleneck event influence ability to mount an immune response?

Answer 16

yes - a bottleneck causes decreased genetic diversity which causes a decreased ability to mount an immune response

Question 17

what is the effect of the genetic bottleneck on populations of cheetahs dealing with a coronavirus?

Answer 17

very little genetic diversity so increased amounts of cheetahs die from coronavirus because their immune systems are less able to mount a response :(

Question 18

do viruses have effects on reintroduction efforts?

Answer 18

yes - release of animals back into the wild can release viruses into the wild which will hurt wild animals

Question 19

example of reintroduction with viruses

Answer 19

western barred bandicoots (say that 5 times fast) reintroduced to the wild brought bandicoot papillomatosis carcinomatosis virus type 1 a novel oncogenic virus that contains genetic material from both papilloma and polyoma viruses

Question 20

does bandicoot papillomatosis carcinomatosis virus type 1 affect only western barred bandicoots?

Answer 20

no - also affected whatever carnivores ate the bandicoots

Question 21

what virus did reintroduced Attwater’s prairie chicken bring to the population?

Answer 21

reticuloendotheliosis (retrovirus)

Question 22

is rabies all over the world?

Answer 22

no - some areas are classified as “rabies-free” or rabies-free

Question 23

which province has the most rabies?

Answer 23

Ontario - followed by Saskatchewan, Alberta, BC, and Quebec

Question 24

which strain of rabies is most prevalent in Alberta?

Answer 24

Bat in both 2023 & 2024

Question 25

is there a high risk for adopting puppies from Nunavut with rabies?

Answer 25

yes - contact with arctic foxes - puppies have had rabies before

Question 26

did Ontario do rabies prevention?

Answer 26

yes - baiting for fox strain and raccoon strain

Question 27

ways you can distribute rabies vaccines to wild animals

Answer 27

1- by plane dropping them
2- laying traps and returning to vaccinate animals caught (have to check traps frequently because you don’t want the animals to over heat

Question 28

are intradermal or intramuscular vaccines better for rabies

Answer 28

intradermal! dendritic cells in skin are really good at picking up pathogens

Question 29

what kind of vaccine is the rabies oral vaccine for animals

Answer 29

modified live vaccine

Question 30

what happens when humans don’t wear gloves when they handle the oral rabies vaccine?

Answer 30

pox virus induced pustules

Question 31

what is the effect of rabies vaccination?

Answer 31

HUGE effect on decreasing rabies

Question 32

did France decrease rabies in their population after a vaccination campaign

Answer 32

yes

Question 33

did increasing the rabies vaccination also increase the fox population

Answer 33

yes

Question 34

what are the challenges to baiting arctic foxes in Canada

Answer 34

so much territory up north + very expensive

Question 35

can viruses influence the landscape?

Answer 35

yes - when wildebeest got a virus & were decimated, the forest was also destroyed due to wildebeest not eating the grass which led to fires ravaging the ecosystem. Reversed (forests came back) when wildebeest popn recovered

Question 36

what is rinderpest

Answer 36

distemper virus similar to dog distemper + measles

Question 37

when rinderpest was vaccinated against in wildebeest what happened

Answer 37

0% antibodies in the population compared to 86% & popn came back

Question 38

can lions get distemper?

Answer 38

yes - & it reduced the population in 1994. It was a spillover infection and may have been a co-infection with babesia

Question 39

name a epizootic disease of rabbits

Answer 39

rabbit hemorrhagic disease

Question 40

what happened to the Iberian lynx?

Answer 40

the Iberian lynx eats many (87% of diet) rabbits. With rabbit hemorrhagic disease, lots of rabbits died :(which decimated Iberian lynx popns as well

Question 41

is anyone trying to fix the Iberian lynx population problem?

Answer 41

yes - trying to bring rabbits back to the population by creating rabbit tunnels/ warrens
-creating firebreaks to preserve habitat.
-There’s also a committee dedicated to it
- breeding stations that only lynx can get into

Question 42

why did Australians introduce myxomatosis?

Answer 42

population control

Question 43

what happened with myxomatosis in Australia?

Answer 43

rabbit population developed resistance - used to be 100% mortality after injection but then after 30 years mortality was less than 50%

Question 44

do robins, chickadees, gulls, ducks, geese have LPAI?

Answer 44

robins + chickadees don’t, gulls, ducks, geese do
–> huge amounts of LPAI in ponds

Question 45

how did HPAI appear?

Answer 45

LPAI mutated - now transmission + pathogenicity is much higher

Question 46

dead end hosts of HPAI

Answer 46

harbour seals in Quebec
black bear
wild foxes

Question 47

are there current outbreaks of HPAI in Alberta

Answer 47

not currently

Question 48

how many flocks in Canada affected by HPAI

Answer 48

3 000 000+

Question 49

how many wild birds in Canada infected with HPAI in 2024 confirmed?

Answer 49

3188

Question 50

is there Covid in deer?

Answer 50

yes ! TONS! prevalence up to 80% in Ohio

Question 51

is there deer to human transmission of covid?

Answer 51

suspected

Question 52

what strain of covid do deer have?

Answer 52

in deer, don’t find omicron - You instead find a strain that was part of 2nd outbreak
- now have a reservoir of old covid strain - if covid gets much different than omicron, can get spillback into the population

Question 53

hypothesis on how deer were infected with covid-19

Answer 53

humans infected - infects Martens - passed on to deer
hunters infected - pass to wildlife