title: Population genetic structure of the prairie dog flea and plague vector, Oropsylla hirsuta.
abstract: Oropsylla hirsuta is the primary flea of the black-tailed prairie dog and is a vector of the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis. We examined the population genetic structure of O. hirsuta fleas collected from 11 prairie dog colonies, 7 of which had experienced a plague-associated die-off in 1994. In a sample of 332 O. hirsuta collected from 226 host individuals, we detected 24 unique haplotype sequences in a 480 nucleotide segment of the cytochrome oxidase II gene. We found significant overall population structure but we did not detect a signal of isolation by distance, suggesting that O. hirsuta may be able to disperse relatively quickly at the scale of this study. All 7 colonies that were recently decimated by plague showed signs of recent population expansion, whereas 3 of the 4 plague-negative colonies showed haplotype patterns consistent with stable populations. These results suggest that O. hirsuta populations are affected by plague-induced prairie dog die-offs and that flea dispersal among prairie dog colonies may not be dependent exclusively on dispersal of prairie dogs. Re-colonization following plague events from plague-free refugia may allow for rapid flea population expansion following plague epizootics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0334, USA. robert.brinkerhoff@yale.edu
authors.forename: R Jory
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Brinkerhoff
authors.forename: Andrew P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Ryan T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.forename: Sharon K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Collinge
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003120:Colorado; D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions; D007303:Insect Vectors / Q000235:genetics* / Q000382:microbiology; D010930:Plague / Q000635:transmission / Q000662:veterinary; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012376:Rodent Diseases / Q000635:transmission; D012589:Sciuridae / Q000235:genetics / Q000382:microbiology*; D005423:Siphonaptera / Q000235:genetics* / Q000382:microbiology
chemical_list: C117108:cytochrome C oxidase subunit II; D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV