PARENT SESSION
Poster Session 39: Late Breaking and Newsworthy Posters
Friday, August 12, 8:30 AM - 10:30 AM, Exhibit Hall 220 A-E, Level 2, Palais des congrčs de Montréal
Seasonal haul-out behavior and the dynamics of phocine distemper epizootics.
Klepac, Petra*,1, 2, Neubert, Michael1, Harding, Karin3, 1 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA3 Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden
ABSTRACT- Phocine Distemper Virus caused mass die-offs of European harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) in 1988 and 2002. An interesting feature of these outbreaks is large variation in seal mortalities among different regions. Differences in mortalities have been linked to pollution (e.g. PCBs), and to genetic differentiation of harbor seals. We explore the hypothesis that mortality is linked to the seasonal behavior of seals and the timing of the virus outbreak. We illustrate this by including seasonal haul-out behavior in existing models for phocine distemper epizootics.
Key words: phocine distemper virus, mathematical epidemiology, haul-out behavior