PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 19: Modeling: Movement and Population Dynamics
Monday, August 8, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 513 A, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal

A simple model of plague spread in a population of Black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus).

Brooks, Christopher^*,1, Webb, Colleen¹, Antolin, Michael¹, Gage, Kenneth², ¹ Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado² Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, Colorado

ABSTRACT- Plague is among the most important diseases in human history, having killed a quarter of the population of Europe in a single epidemic. Though human infection is now relatively infrequent in North America, it remains an important pathogen in many rodent populations of the western United States. We present an ordinary differential equation model to explore the importance of several alternate modes of transmission in causing outbreaks in populations of Black-tailed prairie dogs. The model suggests that the classical routes of transmission, bubonic (flea-borne) and pneumonic (individual-to-individual), are relatively unimportant in driving outbreaks. Instead, outbreaks require the presence of a reservoir with both relatively high contact and transmission rates with susceptible prairie dogs. Data collected during a recent outbreak is consistent with the patterns predicted by the model. We propose a potential reservoir for this system and discuss the implications of our results for the persistence of both prairie dogs and plague on the shortgrass steppe of northern Colorado.

Key words: disease ecology, prairie dog, plague, ODE model