Infectious offspring: how birds acquire and transmit an avian polyomavirus in the wild.
Detailed patterns of primary virus acquisition and subsequent dispersal in wild vertebrate populations are virtually absent. We show that nestlings of a songbird acquire polyomavirus infections from larval blowflies, common nest ectoparasites of cavity-nesting birds, while breeding adults acquire and renew the same viral infections via cloacal shedding from their offspring. Infections by these DNA viruses, known potential pathogens producing disease in some bird species, therefore follow an 'upwards vertical' route of an environmental nature mimicking horizontal transmission within families, as evidenced by patterns of viral infection in adults and young of experimental, cross-fostered offspring. This previously undescribed route of viral transmission from ectoparasites to offspring to parent hosts may be a common mechanism of virus dispersal in many taxa that display parental care.
Estación Biológica de Doñana, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Pabellón del Perú, Sevilla, Spain. jpotti@ebd.csic.es
Jaime
J
Potti
Guillermo
G
Blanco
Jesús A
JA
Lemus
David
D
Canal
D000818:Animals; D001715:Bird Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission*; D001717:Birds / Q000821:virology*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011120:Polyomavirus / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D027601:Polyomavirus Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission*; D013030:Spain / Q000453:epidemiology