Waterfowl occurrence and residence time as indicators of H5 and H7 avian influenza in North American Poultry

Publication Date

2020-04-15

Time Period

2020

Humphreys, J.M., Ramey, A.M., Douglas, D.C., Mullinax, J.M., Soos, C., Link, P., and Prosser, D.J., 2020, Waterfowl occurrence and residence time as indicators of H5 and H7 avian influenza in North American Poultry: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9HQV0A4.

Type: Citation Type: Related Primary Publication

Avian infuenza (AI) affects wild aquatic birds and poses hazards to human health, food security, and wildlife conservation globally. Accordingly, there is a recognized need for new methods and tools to help quantify the dynamic interaction between wild bird hosts and commercial poultry. Using satellite-marked waterfowl, we applied Bayesian joint hierarchical modeling to concurrently model species distributions, residency times, migration timing, and disease occurrence probability under an integrated animal movement and disease distribution modeling framework. Our results indicate that migratory waterfowl are positively related to AI occurrence over North America such that as waterfowl occurrence probability or residence time increase at a given location, so too does the chance of a commercial poultry AI outbreak. Analyses also suggest that AI occurrence probability is greatest during our observed waterfowl northward migration, and less during the southward migration.

• Eastern Ecological Science Center