title: Assessing the feasibility of fly based surveillance of wildlife infectious diseases.
abstract: Monitoring wildlife infectious agents requires acquiring samples suitable for analyses, which is often logistically demanding. A possible alternative to invasive or non-invasive sampling of wild-living vertebrates is the use of vertebrate material contained in invertebrates feeding on them, their feces, or their remains. Carrion flies have been shown to contain vertebrate DNA; here we investigate whether they might also be suitable for wildlife pathogen detection. We collected 498 flies in Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire, a tropical rainforest and examined them for adenoviruses (family Adenoviridae), whose DNA is frequently shed in feces of local mammals. Adenoviral DNA was detected in 6/142 mammal-positive flies. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that five of these sequences were closely related to sequences obtained from local non-human primates, while the sixth sequence was closely related to a murine adenovirus. Next-generation sequencing-based DNA-profiling of the meals of the respective flies identified putative hosts that were a good fit to those suggested by adenoviral sequence affinities. We conclude that, while characterizing the genetic diversity of wildlife infectious agents through fly-based monitoring may not be cost-efficient, this method could probably be used to detect the genetic material of wildlife infectious agents causing wildlife mass mortality in pristine areas.
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology of highly pathogenic microorganisms, Robert Koch-Institute, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Constanze
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hoffmann
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology of highly pathogenic microorganisms, Robert Koch-Institute, Berlin, Germany.|Albert-Ludwigs-University, Faculty of Biology, Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stockhausen
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology of highly pathogenic microorganisms, Robert Koch-Institute, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Merkel
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology of highly pathogenic microorganisms, Robert Koch-Institute, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Sébastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Calvignac-Spencer
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology of highly pathogenic microorganisms, Robert Koch-Institute, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Fabian H
authors.initials: FH
authors.lastname: Leendertz
mesh_terms: D000256:Adenoviridae / Q000235:genetics*; D000257:Adenoviridae Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics; D000818:Animals; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics*; D004175:Diptera / Q000821:virology*; D062665:Epidemiological Monitoring / Q000662:veterinary*; D005243:Feces / Q000821:virology; D014644:Genetic Variation; D000882:Haplorhini / Q000821:virology*; D007303:Insect Vectors / Q000821:virology*; D008992:Monkey Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000821:virology; D065947:Rainforest
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral