Source: CORNELL UNIVERSITY submitted to NRP
CONTROL OF ENDEMIC, EMERGING AND RE-EMERGING POULTRY RESPIRATORY DISEASES IN THE UNITED STATES
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
HATCH
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1016497
Grant No.
(N/A)
Cumulative Award Amt.
(N/A)
Proposal No.
(N/A)
Multistate No.
NC-_old1180
Project Start Date
Oct 1, 2018
Project End Date
Sep 30, 2019
Grant Year
(N/A)
Program Code
[(N/A)]- (N/A)
Recipient Organization
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
ITHACA,NY 14853
Performing Department
Ornithology
Non Technical Summary
The economically important bacterial poultry pathogen Mycoplasma gallisepticum successfully jumped to wild birds in which it has become endemic. Contact between poultry and wild birds regularly causes reciprocal Mycoplasma gallisepticum exchanges. The objective of our study is to evaluate the risk wild birds pose to poultry as a reservoir species for Mycoplasma gallisepticum by trapping and sampling house finches.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
0%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
31138991100100%
Knowledge Area
311 - Animal Diseases;

Subject Of Investigation
3899 - Other animals, general;

Field Of Science
1100 - Bacteriology;
Goals / Objectives
Understand the ecology of poultry respiratory diseases
Project Methods
We will establish feeder stations to attract, trap, band and sample house finches. Each newly trapped bird will be banded (using USGS band under permit 22669), aged, sexed, measured, and weighed.From each trapped bird we will take a conjunctival swab from each eye and a choanal swab, following established protocol. The House Finch strains are found in the conjunctiva and in the choana, while poultry strains (that cause respiratory disease) are more likely to be detected from choanal samples. We will also take a small blood sample using venipuncture to determine the presence of Mycoplasma gallisepticumantibodies.The combined samples from each individual bird will be placed in Frey's medium at 37 C during one week following which an aliquot will be taken and tested for the presence of Mycoplasma gallisepticum DNA using the standard mgc2 PCR method. Positive samples will be frozen for later sequencing.Once a year, or when 50 positive samples are obtained, we will sequence the Mycoplasma gallisepticumDNA...The sequences will be compared to the existing isolates to determine where they can be placed in the phylogeny ofMycoplasma gallisepticum

Progress 10/01/18 to 09/30/19

Outputs
Target Audience:We contacted several poultry farms around Ithaca, New York (NY). After explaining the objective of the research we obtained permission to trap finches at their farms. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Because the results are preliminary the results have only been reported at the annual meeting of theMultistate Project NC-1180: Control of endemic, emerging and re-emerging poultry respiratory diseases. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? During the research period we trapped and sampled 357 house finches Haemorhous mexicanus and 94 purple finches H. purpureus. Among these bird the percentage birds with an active Mycoplasma gallisepticum infection was 6.72% for the house finches and 8.51 % for the purple finches. While the percentage infected house finches was similar to birds trapped in earlier periods, the percentage infected purple finches was surprisingly high. These results show that following the host jump ofMycoplasma gallisepticum to wid birds (1) the disease has become endemic among house finches, and (2) prevalence of Mycoplasma gallisepticum infection seems to increase in prevalence in the congeneric purple finches, which might indicate a further adaptation of the pathogen to novel hosts. All samples were incubated in Frey's medium and samples showing growth were frozen after a week. They have been shipped to the Department of Pathobiology & Veterinary Science,Storrs, CT 06269-3089,The University of Connecticut for sequencing to determine if theMycoplasma gallisepticum recovered from wild birds belongs to the house finch or to the poultry clade.

Publications

  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Dhondt AA, AP Dobson & WM Hochachka. 2019. Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis in house finches: the study of an emerging disease. Wildlife Disease Ecology: Linking Theory to Data and Application. K. Wilson, A. Fenton & D. Tompkins (Eds), pp 574-597 Cambridge University Press.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Dhondt AA, KV Dhondt, AP Dobson, SJ Geary, DM Hawley, WM Hochachka, DH Ley, ER Tulman & K Pflaum. 2018. Epidemic Spread and Evolutionary Changes in an Emerging Pathogen Following a Host Shift from Poultry to Wild Birds. Investigaci�n en Ciencia Animal 2(1): 149-161