Bioinformatics Starter Grant: Hierarchical Bayesian modeling to investigate climate and land-use drivers in the multi-species ecology of West Nile virus.

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The Institute of Ecological Studies is awarded a grant in support of research to develop and implement methods to integrate ecological data with biological models at relevant spatial and temporal scales to better understand the ecology of multi-species systems, including West Nile virus (WNV). The research will have two primary aims. First, Hierarchical Bayesian (HB) modeling will be used to integrate data on local temperature and precipitation measures with WNV activity (in human, horse, and bird samples) to assess how county to region-scale weather influence epizootic WNV amplification. The results will be used to implement a fully spatio-temporal model that incorporates the additive and interacting affects of disease (WNV), climate (winter temperatures and ENSO), and human land-use on population abundances for twenty native U.S. bird species. Second, available data describing vector abundance and species composition across North America will be synthesized from public health, ecological, entomological, and mosquito control sources; and vector abundance and composition will be sampled at a sub-county scale from the land-use gradient sampling network currently implemented in the Baltimore Ecosystem Study Long Term Ecological Research project. The results of this study will contribute to an understanding of the complex ecosystem structure that supports arbovirus (including WNV) amplification and persistence after introduction, and may additionally provide insight into mosquito abatement in urban versus rural areas. A final product of this research will be a synthesis of these two aims that integrates the ecology of both vector and host communities to develop a forecast model for how climate and land-use change scenarios may affect the ecology of arthropod-borne viruses (including West Nile virus) and their impact on native ecosystems.