SGER: Invasion and Establishment Dynamics of West Nile Virus in the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico, Colorado and Texas.

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This SGER project will sample mosquito populations and West Nile Virus establishment along a nearly 800 km north-south gradient of the Rio Grande valley in Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. Intensive sampling in the summer of 2002 showed no infected mosquitoes, and it is predicted that WNV will become established in the Rio Grande region during the summer of 2003. The goals of this project are to (1) document the initial establishment patterns of West Nile Virus (WNV) in the Rio Grande Basin mosquito populations, (2) determine the rate and directions of spread of WNV subsequent to initial establishment events, (3) ascertain the predominant environmental factors (including climate dynamics, avian host population abundances and distributions, habitat classes, and human land use patterns) that drive the population dynamics of both mosquitoes and WNV occurrence, and (4) apply the field data to parameterize both GIS and mathematical dispersal models in an attempt to develop predictive capabilities for the continued expansion of WNV. The intellectual merit for this project lies in the potential to describe in detail the first colonization of an avian- and mosquito-borne virus into a large riverine ecosystem (the Rio Grande), and develop a mathematical understanding of its subsequent spread. The broader applications of the project results include predictive models for forecasting annual distributions and intensities of WNV in the Rio Grande and potentially other rivers of the Southwest, as well as an understanding for other future introductions of mosquito-borne diseases (e.g., dengue fever or Rift Valley fever) into North America.