TY  - JOUR
A1  - Imholt, Christian
A1  - Reil, Daniela
A1  - Eccard, Jana
A1  - Jacob, Daniela
A1  - Hempelmann, Nils
A1  - Jacob, Jens
T1  - Quantifying the past and future impact of climate on outbreak patterns of bank voles (Myodes glareolus)
JF  - Pest management science
N2  - BACKGROUND Central European outbreak populations of the bank vole (Myodes glareolus Schreber) are known to cause damage in forestry and to transmit the most common type of Hantavirus (Puumala virus, PUUV) to humans. A sound estimation of potential effects of future climate scenarios on population dynamics is a prerequisite for long-term management strategies. Historic abundance time series were used to identify the key weather conditions associated with bank vole abundance, and were extrapolated to future climate scenarios to derive potential long-term changes in bank vole abundance dynamics.
 RESULTS Classification and regression tree analysis revealed the most relevant weather parameters associated with high and low bank vole abundances. Summer temperatures 2 years prior to trapping had the highest impact on abundance fluctuation. Extrapolation of the identified parameters to future climate conditions revealed an increase in years with high vole abundance.
 CONCLUSION Key weather patterns associated with vole abundance reflect the importance of superabundant food supply through masting to the occurrence of bank vole outbreaks. Owing to changing climate, these outbreaks are predicted potentially to increase in frequency 3-4-fold by the end of this century. This may negatively affect damage patterns in forestry and the risk of human PUUV infection in the long term. (c) 2014 Society of Chemical Industry
KW  - climate change
KW  - population dynamics
KW  - bank vole
KW  - regression tree
KW  - outbreak
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/ps.3838
SN  - 1526-498X
SN  - 1526-4998
VL  - 71
IS  - 2
SP  - 166
EP  - 172
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Reil, Daniela
A1  - Imholt, Christian
A1  - Eccard, Jana
A1  - Jacob, Jens
T1  - Beech Fructification and Bank Vole Population Dynamics - Combined Analyses of Promoters of Human Puumala Virus Infections in Germany
JF  - PLoS one
N2  - The transmission of wildlife zoonoses to humans depends, amongst others, on complex interactions of host population ecology and pathogen dynamics within host populations. In Europe, the Puumala virus (PUUV) causes nephropathia epidemica in humans. In this study we investigated complex interrelations within the epidemic system of PUUV and its rodent host, the bank vole (Myodes glareolus). We suggest that beech fructification and bank vole abundance are both decisive factors affecting human PUUV infections. While rodent host dynamics are expected to be directly linked to human PUUV infections, beech fructification is a rather indirect predictor by serving as food source for PUUV rodent hosts. Furthermore, we examined the dependence of bank vole abundance on beech fructification. We analysed a 12-year (2001-2012) time series of the parameters: beech fructification (as food resource for the PUUV host), bank vole abundance and human incidences from 7 Federal States of Germany. For the first time, we could show the direct interrelation between these three parameters involved in human PUUV epidemics and we were able to demonstrate on a large scale that human PUUV infections are highly correlated with bank vole abundance in the present year, as well as beech fructification in the previous year. By using beech fructification and bank vole abundance as predictors in one model we significantly improved the degree of explanation of human PUUV incidence. Federal State was included as random factor because human PUUV incidence varies considerably among states. Surprisingly, the effect of rodent abundance on human PUUV infections is less strong compared to the indirect effect of beech fructification. Our findings are useful to facilitate the development of predictive models for host population dynamics and the related PUUV infection risk for humans and can be used for plant protection and human health protection purposes.
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134124
SN  - 1932-6203
VL  - 10
IS  - 7
PB  - PLoS
CY  - San Fransisco
ER  -