Since parity data for mosquitoes were collected only in 2015, we assessed for correlation of parous mosquitoes with heartworm-positive pools in 2015. CAS  Neighborhood age was not a significant factor, as Kruskal–Wallis test was not significant when incorporating neighborhood age categories. Highlights Prevalence of adult heartworm (HW) infection was 4 % in cats and 28 % in dogs.... 15 Apr. Each of these sites contained some wooded habitat and some field or pasture habitat, allowing us to conveniently sample mosquitoes in these two distinct habitat types. Parasit Vectors. PLoS ONE. Within-mosquito Dirofilaria immitis prevalence varied…, Visualization of heartworm prevalence by…, Visualization of heartworm prevalence by zip code in Wake County, North Carolina. We performed real time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) to assess for presence or absence of D. immitis DNA within the previously extracted and quantified mosquito pools. 2011 Nov;26(4):178-85. doi: 10.1053/j.tcam.2011.09.005. Within the landscape of North Carolina, this equates to less heartworm disease expected within the host in suburban areas as a function of urbanization-induced mosquito diversity losses. Int J Environ Res Public Health. There did not appear to be any seasonal trends in D. immitis infection within mosquitoes, although we could have missed important dynamics in the spring due to our trapping season beginning in June. Discrimination between six species of canine microfilariae by a single polymerase chain reaction. For both suburban and urban areas generally, anthropogenic disturbance is also associated with increased abundance of vectors of human disease, including container-breeding Aedes that transmit dengue, Zika, or chikungunya viruses, and Culex mosquitoes, which transmit West Nile virus and human filarial pathogens [10, 11, 13, 14]. Michael H. Reiskind. Int J Environ Res Public Health. Nayar JK, Knight JW. We investigated seasonality of D. immitis transmission within Wake County by plotting the overall percent positive pools across the sampling season. California Privacy Statement, Geographic prevalence of feline heartworm infection (adult worms) generally follows canine infections, but infection occurs at approximately 10% of the prevalence rate for dogs (see map below for 2019 CAPC feline antibody prevalence data). Exposure to vector-borne pathogens in privately owned dogs living in different socioeconomic settings in Brazil. Article  This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. We found that suburban areas generally had the lowest within-mosquito heartworm prevalence, and that mosquito diversity was positively correlated with heartworm prevalence within the canine host. Thongsripong P, Green A, Kittayapong P, Kapan D, Wilcox B, Bennett S. Mosquito vector diversity across habitats in central Thailand endemic for dengue and other arthropod-borne diseases. We performed a logit transformation of our within-host heartworm prevalence data to account for its proportional nature [38], and used Akaike information criterion (AIC) as the estimator of model quality in our model selection. 2016;94:314–21. Our findings contribute to an understanding of the local transmission dynamics of the prevalent and devastating dog heartworm parasite in suburban areas of North Carolina, USA. Instead, our results suggest a positive relationship between mosquito diversity and disease transmission, as has been found in the limited existing studies investigating the effects of diversity within disease systems with multiple vectors [5, 6, 16]. R: a language and environment for statistical computing. PubMed  Chitwood MC, Swingen MB, Lashley MA, Flowers JR, Palamar MB, Apperson CS, et al. 2006;135:303–14. Within-mosquito. Vet Parasitol. With regard to dog heartworm disease, this loss of mosquito diversity is associated with decreased heartworm prevalence within both the vector and the host. Wild host densities are not assessed in this study, but could play an important role in the heartworm transmission dynamics for domestic dogs, particularly if wild hosts that typically serve as primary D. immitis reservoirs are excluded from highly urbanized areas. On average, the feline heartworm antigen prevalence rate was 0.60 times the canine rate. Diagnosis: In Canada, approximately 88% of heartworm infections in dogs are subclinical, due to low parasite burdens. Each of these smaller natural sites had a radius of at least 100 m of undeveloped land around the trap, which is an appropriate radius given previous findings on mosquito habitat fidelity [28]. Importantly, the parasite is naturally vectored by at least 25 mosquito species in the USA [20] and even greater numbers of species worldwide with varying vectorial capacities. We compared within-mosquito heartworm infection across land-use types by Kruskal–Wallis and likelihood ratio tests. A risk map for D. immitis infection within the canine host shows a trend of higher prevalence in eastern and southern Wake County zip codes (Fig. Trends Parasitol. Open Map. (For a thirty-pound dog, one capsule three times weekly during mosquito season in areas that have reported any incidence of heartworm. Musso D, Gubler DJ. JLF collected within-host heartworm data from incoming shelter dogs. J Parasitol. Article  When comparing D. immitis prevalence within dogs to its prevalence within mosquitoes by zip code, no significant relationship was detected (F(1, 16)= 0.511, P = 0.485). We stored the extracted DNA at − 20 °C until the time of further analysis. MRSB collected mosquitoes and analyzed for the presence of dog heartworm DNA. For mosquitoes collected in 2015, we sexed the individuals and females were dissected for parity analysis via ovary tracheation [31]. © 2021 BioMed Central Ltd unless otherwise stated. doi: 10.7554/eLife.22053. The effect of urbanization is well known for certain mosquito species of interest, particularly the container-breeding Aedes [7, 8], but has only recently been examined in the context of effects on mosquito species assemblages. Brown HE, Harrington LC, Kaufman PE, McKay T, Bowman DD, Nelson CT, et al. American Heartworm Society. Geospat Health. Future studies could partner with local veterinarians to get finer scale host data, as collection of detailed travel history for newly heartworm-positive dogs would allow for more definitive mapping of spatial and temporal host-level incidence trends. Visualization of heartworm prevalence by zip code in Wake County, North Carolina. The most prevalent species was Ae. Although vector biodiversity is our primary interest, another potentially important contributor to dog heartworm disease risk is socioeconomic status. We then tested the null hypothesis that \(\sum p_{i} = p\) using a likelihood ratio test, utilizing the Holm method to correct for multiple comparisons when identifying which land-uses differed in their probabilities. 2012;181:1–11. No state in the U.S. was heartworm-free in 2019, according to the AHS survey, which determined that the top five states in heartworm incidence were Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Arkansas and Alabama—all states that have been in the top tier since the AHS began tracking incidence data in 2001. Although uneven sampling size between species makes it difficult to assess which species are important local vectors, Ps. We created choropleths to visualize risk maps for D. immitis infection within dogs and within mosquitoes in the choroplethrZip package in R [36]. The authors declare that they have no competing interests. 2018;6:e4794. PubMed  Lee AC, Montgomery SP, Theis JH, Blagburn BL, Eberhard ML. At least in the context of suburban areas, mosquito communities do not recover from these diversity losses after the initial land-use change; diversity decreases as neighborhoods age, resulting in the lowest diversity mosquito assemblages in the most established suburban areas [10]. Reviewed By Peter Kintzer DVM, … As with the Kruskal–Wallis test, we again performed this test for land-use type both with and without neighborhood age categories as levels within the broader suburban category. Of these, 832 tested positive for D. immitis, giving an average prevalence of 10.91% in domestic dogs in Wake County. All zip codes in Wake County had some level of heartworm infection, but zip codes where mosquitoes were not sampled were omitted from visualization (denoted NA) for clarity. 2013;10:1505–26. By Sarah Ashley | May. c While the relationship between within-host heartworm prevalence and mosquito rarefied richness was not significant (F(1, 16)= 4.342, P = 0.054, R2= 0.213), a similar positive trend was found. Finally, we performed generalized linear model selection to find the model that best explained within-host heartworm prevalence using all combinations of the following independent variables at the zip code level: presence or absence of heartworm-positive mosquito pools, proportion heartworm-positive mosquito pools, rarefied richness, evenness, Shannon–Wiener diversity, mosquito abundance and median household income. Acta Trop. Dog heartworm disease is global in distribution and is likely the most common vector-borne disease in the USA, with prevalence in domestic dogs between 1–12.5% on average nationwide [17], but as high as 48.8% in certain highly endemic regions following natural disasters, like the Gulf Coast post-Hurricane Katrina [18]. The benefit to our patients is a free heartworm test. Figure 1b- Mean prevalence rates in Europe. R Core Team. We acquired median household income by zip code from the 2013–2017 American Community Survey using U.S. Census Bureau’s American FactFinder tool [37] to investigate whether D. immitis prevalence within dogs and socioeconomic status is correlated. Can Your Zip Code Make Your Dog More Susceptible to Heartworm? All detect a uterine antigen produced by reproductively active female … Public health issues concerning the widespread distribution of canine heartworm disease. In a separate facility, we extracted DNA from each pool using either the DNeasy Blood and Tissue Kit (Qiagen, Venlo, Netherlands) or the ZR Genomic DNA-Tissue MiniPrep (Zymo Research, Irvine, CA, USA). Would you like email updates of new search results? Levy JK, Lappin MR, Glaser AL, Birkenheuer AJ, Anderson TC, Edinboro CH. doi: 10.1016/j.actatropica.2016.03.008. 2016;158:197–200. Ecohealth. PubMed  Roche B, Rohani P, Dobson AP, Guégan J. Comparison of within-mosquito heartworm prevalence by land-use type. Twenty20 All 50 states have had confirmed cases of heartworm since the disease’s discovery back in 1856. Cats are infected with juvenile worms at a much higher rate than with adult worms; estimates based on necropsy and antibody studies suggest that … We did not find a relationship between log mosquito abundance and within-host heartworm prevalence (F(1, 16)= 0.396, P = 0.538). Given that anthropogenic land-use change alters the diversity and composition of mosquito assemblages and is occurring rapidly worldwide, greater understanding of the role of vector diversity in multi-vectored diseases is critical and will have global impacts. Park AW, Cleveland CA, Dallas TA, Corn JL. This research was also supported by USDA Multistate Hatch Project MS-1443/1943 and NC-2630. The American Heartworm Society (AHS) surveys practices and shelters across the U.S. every three years. 5c). We found significant differences in within-mosquito D. immitis prevalence among land-use types (Kruskal–Wallis test: χ2 = 8.555, df = 2, P = 0.014). Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA, Meredith R. Spence Beaulieu & Michael H. Reiskind, Animal Services Division, Department of Environmental Services, Wake County Animal Center, Raleigh, NC, USA, You can also search for this author in ESDA Canine Heartworm … Our results suggest that decreases in mosquito diversity due to urbanization lead to decreases in dog heartworm prevalence. PubMed Central  MRSB and MHR conceptualized the study and its methodology. Yet throughout the trapping season, percent D. immitis-positive pools was positively correlated with mosquito parity data. Recognizing that mosquito diversity changes as suburban neighborhoods grow older [10], we stratified our mosquito sampling efforts in suburban areas by neighborhood age, creating a chronosequence with which to test our predictions. 8600 Rockville Pike A significant positive correlation was noted between within-host heartworm prevalence and (. The datasets analyzed during the present study are available in the Figshare repository: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.9339302.v1. 2017;42:184–9. Among models including all combinations of our tested variables (presence or absence of heartworm-positive mosquito pools, proportion heartworm-positive mosquito pools, rarefied richness, evenness, Shannon–Wiener diversity, mosquito abundance and median household income), selection revealed that the top model set (all models with ΔAIC < 2) included two models: (i) mosquito Shannon–Wiener diversity and median household income (AIC = 23.95, residual df = 15, ΔAIC = 0); and (ii) mosquito Shannon–Wiener diversity, mosquito rarefied richness and median household income (AIC = 25.45, residual df = 14, ΔAIC = 1.5). Factors influencing U.S. canine heartworm (Dirofilaria immitis) prevalence. Biggerstaff BJ. Melarsomine Dihydrochloride Use by ZIP Code 6 2010–2014. Heartworms are a type of roundworm spread by mosquitoes, and dogs of any age or breed are susceptible to infection from them. Of the total 2488 pools tested, 15 were positive for the presence of D. immitis DNA (Table 1). Sci Rep. 2020 Nov 6;10(1):19287. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-76231-x. This could be due to increased preventative medication use in higher income areas [22], or to variation in other factors such as the amount of time a dog spends outside and therefore amount of potential mosquito exposure time. Heartworm antigen tests are the primary diagnostic and screening tests for heartworm. Urbanization is occurring rapidly on a global scale and is altering mosquito communities, creating assemblages that are characteristically less diverse. American FactFinder. albopictus populations in North Carolina are rare, but have suggested that it is likely not a suitable vector for D. immitis in North Carolina [42]. Our results demonstrate that decreases in mosquito diversity due to urbanization alter vector-borne disease risk. While mosquito diversity had a positive relationship with host heartworm prevalence in the model, household income had a negative relationship with host heartworm prevalence, supporting our hypothesis that higher income areas would have less dog heartworm disease than lower income areas. Harrison XA, Donaldson L, Correa-Cano ME, Evans J, Fisher DN, Goodwin CE, et al. quadrimaculatus) are known to be competent heartworm vectors [20]. Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae): an experimental and natural host of Dirofilaria immitis (Filarioidea: Onchocercidae) in Florida, USA. However, mosquito diversity metrics were positively correlated with host heartworm prevalence. Letters above the bars denote significant differences. volume 13, Article number: 12 (2020) We also determined the best predictor of host-level prevalence among models including within-mosquito infection, mosquito diversity and abundance, and socioeconomic status as … Rishniw M, Barr SC, Simpson KW, Frongillo MF, Franz M, Alpizar JLD. 1):60–7. Clin Microbiol Rev. A tale of two city blocks: differences in immature and adult mosquito abundances between socioeconomically different urban blocks in Baltimore (Maryland, USA). Google Scholar. Our results demonstrate that anthropogenic land-use change alters vector-borne disease risk. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ento.54.110807.090626. So any pet not on heartworm prevention could have a one-in-ten chance of being infected with heartworm. J Am Vet Med Assoc. Sci Rep. 2016;6:29002. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.