Spatiotemporal Overlap of Mallards With Poultry Farms Is Associated With Greater Risk of Avian Influenza Wild Bird Spillover Events

作者：Joshua A. Cullen, Nicholas M. Masto, Jeffery D. Sullivan, Cory J. Highway, Kelly Patyk, Mary Jane McCool, Mia Kim Torchetti, Kristina Lantz, Rebecca L. Poulson, Deborah L. Carter, Jamie C. Feddersen, Bradley S. Cohen, Diann J. Prosser · 发表于：Ecology and Evolution · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1002/ece3.72221 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Influenza Virus Research Studies、Viral Infections and Vectors、Animal Disease Management and Epidemiology

ABSTRACT Animal movement influences local transmission and geographic spread of pathogens. Waterfowl are known reservoirs of pathogens, including H5 goose/Guangdong lineage ( H5 GsGd ) highly pathogenic avian influenza ( HPAI ). This HPAI virus lineage causes high rates of morbidity and mortality in domestic poultry and many wild bird species. Mallards ( Anas platyrhynchos ) are a generalist waterfowl species whose habitat largely overlaps with many other waterfowl and are considered effective spillover vectors of HPAI . To investigate the potential contribution of waterfowl to HPAI spillover, we used mallards as a proxy and measured the spatiotemporal overlap of 183 GPS ‐tagged mallards during 2021–2022 with respect to confirmed wild bird spillover events in United States (U.S.) poultry farms. Additionally, we estimated the probability of HPAI spillover events as a function of mallard overlap and poultry farm type. We found infrequent overlap instances between mallards and poultry farms; however, several of these overlap instances lasted > 5 days and up to 19 days. Population‐level overlap with poultry farms was greatest during pre‐breeding migration, followed by the breeding season. The probability of HPAI spillover was predicted to be greatest for commercial turkey farms, followed by backyard poultry farms. Importantly, farms overlapped by mallards were more than twice as likely to experience a spillover (i.e., increased risk probability), even in the absence of known m...