BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY OF ORYZOMYS PALUSTRIS (MARSH RICE RAT) IN COASTAL TEXAS: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE LIFE-HISTORY STRATEGY OF BAYOU VIRUS (BAYV)
type: CreativeWork
description: Prior to the 1990s, Hantaviruses (Family: Bunyaviridae) and their manifest human syndromes were viewed as public health concerns primarily for Eurasia. However, the Sin Nombre virus (SNV) outbreak of 1993-94 in the southwestern U. S. brought Hanta to North America’s front door, fueling intense global efforts by mammalogists, ecologists, virologists, and epidemiologists to identify and characterize other potential, host-hantavirus associations. Since then, more than 21 pathogenic, hantaviral genotypes have been discovered that can induce human hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), with symptoms ranging from proteinuria to pulmonary edema to massive exsanguination, with up to 40% of clinical cases ending in death. Over time, researchers have linked specific large-scale, ecological disturbances (e.g., climate change) and habitat conversion to increases in rodent host abundances with concomitant increases in HPS cases. However, the factors involved in maintenance of hantavirus seroprevalence levels in host populations at finer scales have proven elusive, as rodent phenotypic responses to environmental context and sympatric species can drive infection patterns, and these relationships are usually non-linear and often extremely complex. The marsh rice rat (Oryzomys palustris Harlan, 1837) is the primary host for the hantavirus genotype Bayou (BAYV; discovered in 1994), the second-most common genotype in N. A. and so far, it is responsible for HPS cases in Louisiana and Texas. O. palustris has the capacity for life longevity and distance dispersing, and is an integral marshland mammal, performing important roles in the riverine and coastal marsh, trophic webs along the Atlantic Coast and the northern Gulf of Mexico. Although macro- and microhabitat preferences of Texas O. palustris have been clarified, we know little of its intraspecific or heterospecific social behaviors or other life history traits that may either accelerate or decelerate BAYV dissemination in a rodent co…
abstract: Prior to the 1990s, Hantaviruses (Family: Bunyaviridae) and their manifest human syndromes were viewed as public health concerns primarily for Eurasia. However, the Sin Nombre virus (SNV) outbreak of 1993-94 in the southwestern U. S. brought Hanta to North America’s front door, fueling intense global efforts by mammalogists, ecologists, virologists, and epidemiologists to identify and characterize other potential, host-hantavirus associations. Since then, more than 21 pathogenic, hantaviral genotypes have been discovered that can induce human hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), with symptoms ranging from proteinuria to pulmonary edema to massive exsanguination, with up to 40% of clinical cases ending in death. Over time, researchers have linked specific large-scale, ecological disturbances (e.g., climate change) and habitat conversion to increases in rodent host abundances with concomitant increases in HPS cases. However, the factors involved in maintenance of hantavirus seroprevalence levels in host populations at finer scales have proven elusive, as rodent phenotypic responses to environmental context and sympatric species can drive infection patterns, and these relationships are usually non-linear and often extremely complex. The marsh rice rat (Oryzomys palustris Harlan, 1837) is the primary host for the hantavirus genotype Bayou (BAYV; discovered in 1994), the second-most common genotype in N. A. and so far, it is responsible for HPS cases in Louisiana and Texas. O. palustris has the capacity for life longevity and distance dispersing, and is an integral marshland mammal, performing important roles in the riverine and coastal marsh, trophic webs along the Atlantic Coast and the northern Gulf of Mexico. Although macro- and microhabitat preferences of Texas O. palustris have been clarified, we know little of its intraspecific or heterospecific social behaviors or other life history traits that may either accelerate or decelerate BAYV dissemination in a rodent co…
author: Holsomback, Tyla S.
keywords: Oryzomys palustris, Bayou virus, Texas, behavioral ecology, hantavirus, marsh rice rat, seroprevalence, socioecology, coastal marshland, GIS
date published: 2013-08-09
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:04:49Z
provider: Texas Technology University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Texas Tech University

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property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/2346/86868