Links between landscape change, behavior, and disease in wildlife
Ecology of avian influenza viruses in wild waterfowl
Wild waterfowl are natural hosts of low pathogenic avian influenza viruses. As is true for many endemic wildlife pathogens, influenza infections generally have minimal impacts on waterfowl health; however, the occasional mass mortality events from highly pathogenic influenza viruses, and the importance of these viruses for health of other bird and mammal species, means that understanding relationships between influenza infection and waterfowl movement is important. These relationships are inevitably context-dependent, varying across species, locations, and individuals depending on overall health, food availability, and genetic factors. I am analyzing a combination of GPS telemetry data and collections data to understand how environmental context affects relationships between influenza infection and movement behavior in waterfowl.
Teitelbaum, C. S., Casazza, M. L., McDuie, F., De La Cruz, S. E., Overton, C. T., Hall, L. A., ... & Prosser, D. J. (2023). Waterfowl recently infected with low pathogenic avian influenza exhibit reduced local movement and delayed migration. Ecosphere, 14(2), e4432.
Teitelbaum, C.S., Ackerman, J.T., Hill, M.A., Satter, J.M., Casazza, M.L., De La Cruz, S.E.W. Boyce, W.M., Buck, E.J., Eadie, J.M., Herzog, M.P., Matchett, E.L., Overton, C.T., Peterson, S.H., Plancarte, M., Ramey, A.M., Sullivan, J.D., and Prosser, D.J. (2022). Avian influenza antibody prevalence increases with mercury contamination in wild waterfowl. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 289:20221312. |
Movement and infection dynamics in nomadic animals
Movement is, in part, an adaptation to environments that vary in space and time. Animal movements can also have dramatic impacts on populations, communities, and ecosystems, including on the spread and transmission of infectious disease. As part of my Ph.D. research, I worked on the white ibis project, using models to explore the links between behavior and disease in these urban-living nomadic birds. I built mechanistic models to understand the links between landscape dynamics and nomadic animal movements. I also used these models to explore how highly variable movements such as nomadism can drive the transmission and spread of infectious diseases, particularly in changing landscapes.
Teitelbaum, C.S., Hepinstall-Cymerman, J., Kidd-Weaver, A., Hernandez, S.M., Altizer, S., and Hall, R.J. (2020). Urban specialization reduces habitat connectivity by a highly mobile wading bird. Movement Ecology, 8:1-13.
Teitelbaum, C. S., Altizer, S., & Hall, R. J. (2022). Habitat Specialization by Wildlife Reduces Pathogen Spread in Urbanizing Landscapes. The American Naturalist, 199(2), 238-251. |
Macroecology of relationships between parasite diversity and long-distance movement
Parasite diversity varies greatly between host species, but there are few established drivers of parasite diversity across species. Long-distance movements may have evolved partially as a mechanism of avoiding natural enemies, and studies of individual populations have consistently shown that long-distance migration can alter the prevalence or intensity of infection in wild animal populations, suggesting that these movements could ultimately determine the diversity of parasite harbored by a given host species. Using data from the Global Mammal Parasite Database, I investigated whether long-distance movements like migration and nomadism are associated with differences in species-level parasite diversity in ungulate hosts. This work was part of the Macroecology of Infectious Disease Research Coordination Network.
Teitelbaum, C.S., Huang, S., Hall, R.J., and Altizer S. (2018). Migratory behaviour predicts greater parasite diversity in ungulates. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 285:1-8.
Teitelbaum, CS., Amoroso, C.R., Huang, S., Davies, T.J., Rushmore, J., Drake, J.M., Stephens, P.R., Byers, J.E., Majewska, A.A., and Nunn, C.L. (2020). A comparison of diversity estimators applied to a database of host-parasite associations. Ecography, 43(9), 1316-1328. |
Changes in movement behavior
Juvenile reintroduced whooping cranes are guided on their first migration by ultralight aircraft. Photo by T. Mueller.
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Shortstopping in whooping cranesSince 2001, the Eastern Migratory Population of whooping cranes has been reintroduced to the eastern United States. Over this period, the average migration distance of the population shrank from 1800 km to less than 900 km, with birds that used to fly to Florida now overwintering as far north as Indiana. I used intensive tracking data to show that this change was driven by the oldest birds in the population; groups with older birds established sites closer to the breeding grounds and in areas where changes in land use and climate might have made conditions more favorable.
I carried out this research at BiK-F in Frankfurt, with Thomas Mueller.
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A print left by a brown bear, one of many types of data used to estimate the presence of brown bears in a given area. Photo by C. Teitelbaum.
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Responses of brown bears in Eastern Europe to ungulate feedingIn collaboration with Dr. Nuria Selva at the Polish Institute for Nature Conservation, we have been examining the effects of anthropogenic food subsidies on movement patterns of brown bears in the Bieszczady region of Poland. Supplemental feeding of ungulates is a common game management practice in the area, and we have been using GPS and snowtracking data of brown bears to examine how this human-supplied food affects movement patterns of this non-target species. I also participated in field work for a related project, where we used non-invasive methods to estimate the brown bear distribution in the region, with a focus on potential human-wildlife conflicts.
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Drivers of animal migration
Migration distances and locations of 94 populations of large mammalian herbivores, shown on a map of mean annual vegetation greenness. The longest migrations are in areas where resource levels are lowest.
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Migration distances of land mammalsThere is an enormous amount of variation in the distances that animals migrate annually, even within a single species, but this variation is largely unexplained. Using a literature-based database, I examined the drivers of migration distances in land mammals, and found that raw resource levels, measured using remote sensing of vegetation greenness, best predicted annual movement. These results indicate that where resource levels are low, migrants must travel farther to fulfill their resource needs.
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