Ecology and geography of transmission of two bat-borne rabies lineages in Chile

PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2013 Dec 12;7(12):e2577. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0002577. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

Rabies was known to humans as a disease thousands of years ago. In America, insectivorous bats are natural reservoirs of rabies virus. The bat species Tadarida brasiliensis and Lasiurus cinereus, with their respective, host-specific rabies virus variants AgV4 and AgV6, are the principal rabies reservoirs in Chile. However, little is known about the roles of bat species in the ecology and geographic distribution of the virus. This contribution aims to address a series of questions regarding the ecology of rabies transmission in Chile. Analyzing records from 1985-2011 at the Instituto de Salud Pública de Chile (ISP) and using ecological niche modeling, we address these questions to help in understanding rabies-bat ecological dynamics in South America. We found ecological niche identity between both hosts and both viral variants, indicating that niches of all actors in the system are undifferentiated, although the viruses do not necessarily occupy the full geographic distributions of their hosts. Bat species and rabies viruses share similar niches, and our models had significant predictive power even across unsampled regions; results thus suggest that outbreaks may occur under consistent, stable, and predictable circumstances.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Chile / epidemiology
  • Chiroptera / virology*
  • Ecology
  • Humans
  • Phylogeography*
  • Rabies / transmission*
  • Rabies / virology
  • Rabies virus / classification*
  • Rabies virus / genetics*
  • Rabies virus / isolation & purification
  • South America
  • Topography, Medical*
  • Zoonoses / transmission*
  • Zoonoses / virology

Grants and funding

Universidad Andres Bello supported the PhD scholarship and provided an international internship grant at the University of Kansas for LEE. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.