Publications
View citations of publications by National Wildlife Health Center scientists since our founding in 1975. Access to full-text is provided where possible.
Wildlife Health Bulletins
Wildlife Health Bulletins
Wildlife Health Bulletins are distributed to natural resource/conservation agencies to provide and promote information exchange about significant wildlife health threats.
Wildlife Disease Case Definitions
Wildlife Disease Case Definitions
Case definitions provide a standardized, science-based set of criteria for diagnosing disease and pathogens. This manual provides case definitions for selected diseases of importance to wildlife in Canada and the United States.
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The future of fungi: Threats and opportunities
The fungal kingdom represents an extraordinary diversity of organisms with profound impacts across animal, plant, and ecosystem health. Fungi simultaneously support life, by forming beneficial symbioses with plants and producing life-saving medicines, and bring death, by causing devastating diseases in humans, plants, and animals. With climate change, increased antimicrobial resistance, global tra
Authors
Nicola T. Case, Judith Berman, David S. Blehert, Robert A. Cramer, Christina A. Cuomo, Cameron R. Currie, Iuliana V. Ene, Matthew C. Fisher, Lillian K. Fritz-Laylin, Aleeza C. Gerstein, N. Louise Glass, Neil A. R. Gow, Sarah J. Gurr, Chris Todd Hittinger, Tobias M. Hohl, Iliyan D. Iliev, Timothy Y. James, Hailing Jin, Bruce S. Klein, James W. Kronstad, Jeffrey M. Lorch, Victoria McGovern, Aaron P. Mitchell, Julia A. Segre, Rebecca S. Shapiro, Donald C. Sheppard, Anita Sil, Jason E. Stajich, Eva E. Stukenbrock, John W. Taylor, Dawn Thompson, Gerard D. Wright, Joseph Heitman, Leah E. Cowen
Potential effects of environmental conditions on prairie dog flea development and implications for sylvatic plague epizootics
Fleas are common ectoparasites of vertebrates worldwide and vectors of many pathogens causing disease, such as sylvatic plague in prairie dog colonies. Development of fleas is regulated by environmental conditions, especially temperature and relative humidity. Development rates are typically slower at low temperatures and faster at high temperatures, which are bounded by lower and upper thresholds
Authors
Michael D. Samuel, Julia E. Poje, Tonie E. Rocke, Marco E. Metzger
Biosafety practices when working with bats: A guide to field research considerations
Introduction: Field work with bats is an important contribution to many areas of research in environmental biology and ecology, as well as microbiology. Work with bats poses hazards such as bites and scratches, and the potential for exposure to infectious pathogens such as rabies virus. It also exposes researchers to many other potential hazards inherent to field work, such as environmental condit
Authors
Alvaro Aguilar-Setién, Nidia Aréchiga-Ceballos, Gary A. Balsamo, Amy J. Behrman, Hannah K. Frank, Gary R. Fujimoto, Elizabeth Gilman Duane, Thomas Warner Hudson III, Shelley M. Jones, Luis A. Ochoa Carrera, Gregory L. Powell, Carrie Alison Smith, Joni Triantis Van Sickle, Susan E. Vleck
Social effects of rabies infection in male vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus)
Rabies virus (RABV) transmitted by the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) poses a threat to agricultural development and public health throughout the Neotropics. The ecology and evolution of rabies host-pathogen dynamics are influenced by two infection-induced behavioral changes. RABV-infected hosts often exhibit increased aggression which facilitates transmission, and rabies also leads to red
Authors
Elsa M. Cárdenas-Canales, Sebastian Stockmaier, Eleanor Cronin, Tonie E. Rocke, Jorge E. Osorio, Gerald G. Carter
Evaluating the effect of nuclear inclusion X (NIX) infections on Pacific razor clam populations
ABSTRACT: Nuclear inclusion X (NIX), the etiological agent of bacterial gill disease in Pacific razor clams Siliqua patula, was associated with host mortality events in coastal Washington State, USA, during the mid-1980s. Ongoing observations of truncated razor clam size distributions in Kalaloch Beach, Washington, raised concerns that NIX continues to impact populations. We conducted a series of
Authors
Maya Groner, Paul Hershberger, Steven C. Fradkin, Carla M. Conway, Aine C. Hawthorn, Maureen K. Purcell
A recombinant rabies vaccine that prevents viral shedding in rabid common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus)
Vampire bat transmitted rabies (VBR) is a continuing burden to public health and agricultural sectors in Latin America, despite decades-long efforts to control the disease by culling bat populations. Culling has been shown to disperse bats, leading to an increased spread of rabies. Thus, non-lethal strategies to control VBR, such as vaccination, are desired. Here, we evaluated the safety and effic
Authors
Elsa M. Cárdenas-Canales, Andres Velasco-Villa, James A. Ellison, Panayampalli S. Satheshkumar, Jorge E. Osario, Tonie E. Rocke
Second round of an interlaboratory comparison of SARS-CoV2 molecular detection assays used by 45 veterinary diagnostic laboratories in the United States
The COVID-19 pandemic presents a continued public health challenge. Veterinary diagnostic laboratories in the United States use RT-rtPCR for animal testing, and many laboratories are certified for testing human samples; hence, ensuring that laboratories have sensitive and specific SARS-CoV2 testing methods is a critical component of the pandemic response. In 2020, the FDA Veterinary Laboratory Inv
Authors
Kaiping Deng, Steffen Uhlig, Laura B. Goodman, Hon S. Ip, Mary Lea Killiam, Sarah Nemser, Jodie Ulaszek, Shannon Kiener, Matthew Kmet, Kirstin Frost, Karina Hettwer, Bertrand Colson, Kapil Nichani, Anja Schlierf, Andriy Tkachenko, Mothomang Mlalazi Oyinloye, Scott Andrew, Ravinder Reddy, Gregory H. Tyson
Divergent gene expression profiles in Alaskan sea otters: An indicator of chronic domoic acid exposure?
An opportunistic investigation into ecosystem instability in Kachemak Bay (KBay), Alaska, has led us to investigate exposure to toxic algae in sea otters. We used gene expression to explore the physiological health of sea otters sampled in KBay in May 2019. We found altered levels of gene transcripts in comparison with reference sea otters from clinically normal, oil-exposed, and nutritionally cha
Authors
Lizabeth Bowen, Susan Knowles, Kathi Lefebvre, Michelle St Martin, Michael Murray, Kimberly A. Kloecker, Daniel Monson, Ben Weitzman, Brenda Ballachey, Heather Coletti, Shannon C. Waters, C Cummings
Morbidity and mortality of Hawaiin geese (Branta sandvicensis) and Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) associated with reticuloendotheliosis virus
Only one virus, Avipox, has been documented previously in wild birds in Hawaii. Using immunohistochemistry and PCR, we found that two native threatened Hawaiian Geese (Branta sandvicensis), one with multicentric histiocytoma and the other with toxoplasmosis, and one Laysan Albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) with avian pox were infected with reticuloendotheliosis virus (REV). The virus was isolate
Authors
Thierry M. Work, Renee Breeden, Julie Dagenais, Robert Rameyer, Holly Sellers, Hon S. Ip, James W. Casey
Evidence gaps and diversity among potential win–win solutions for conservation and human infectious disease control
As sustainable development practitioners have worked to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all” and “conserve life on land and below water”, what progress has been made with win–win interventions that reduce human infectious disease burdens while advancing conservation goals? Using a systematic literature review, we identified 46 proposed solutions, which we then investigated individ
Authors
Skylar R. Hopkins, Kevin D. Lafferty, Chelsea L. Wood, Sarah H Olson, Julia C Buck, Giulio A. De Leo, Kathryn Fiorella, Johanna Fornberg, Andres Garchitorena, Isabel J. Jones, Armand Kuris, Laura H Kwong, Christopher LeBoa, Ariel Elizabeth Leon, Andrea Lund, Andrew J MacDonald, Daniel Metz, Nicole Nova, Alison J. Peel, Justin V. Remais, Tara E. Stewart Merrill, Maya Wilson, Matthew Bonds, Andrew Dobson, David Lopez-Carr, Meghan Howard, Lisa Mandle, Susanne H. Sokolow
Management of diseases in free-ranging wildlife populations
Diseases are increasingly threatening the conservation of wildlife species. Spillover of pathogens into humans and domestic animals may negatively impact public health and the economy, requiring increased proactive management actions. The North American Wildlife Management Model provides the philosophical basis for managing wildlife and underpins all management options. Diseases in wildlife pop
Authors
Mark L. Drew, Jonathan M. Sleeman
Future directions to manage wildlife health in a changing climate
In September 2019 The Economist wrote an obituary to Okjökull, a glacier in western Iceland that was declared “dead” in 2014, a victim of climate change. Although a few wildlife species have already incurred such a fate (e.g., the Bramble Cay melomys [Melomys rubicola]) (Fulton 2017), many more are on the path to climate-driven extinction (Andermann et al. 2020; Ceballos et al. 2015; He et al. 201
Authors
Erik K. Hofmeister, Emily Cornelius Ruhs, Lucas Fortini, M. Camille Hopkins, Lee C. Jones, Kevin D. Lafferty, Jonathan M. Sleeman, Olivia E. LeDee