Biomedical subjects

Mike Begon

Publications and source records attributed to Mike Begon.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Plague dynamics are driven by climate variation.

The bacterium Yersinia pestis causes bubonic plague. In Central Asia, where human plague is still reported regularly, the bacterium is common in natural populations of great gerbils. By using field data from 1949-1995 and previously undescribed statistical techniques, we show that Y. pestis prevalence in gerbils increases with warmer springs and wetter summers: A 1 degrees C increase in spring is predicted to lead to a >50% increase in prevalence. Climatic conditions favoring plague apparently existed in this region at the onset of the Black Death as well as when the most recent plague pandemic arose in the same region, and they are expected to continue or become more favorable as a result of climate change. Threats of outbreaks may thus be increasing where humans live in close contact with rodents and fleas (or other wildlife) harboring endemic plague.

Animals↗

PubMed2004

Predictive thresholds for plague in Kazakhstan.

In Kazakhstan and elsewhere in central Asia, the bacterium Yersinia pestis circulates in natural populations of gerbils, which are the source of human cases of bubonic plague. Our analysis of field data collected between 1955 and 1996 shows that plague invades, fades out, and reinvades in response to fluctuations in the abundance of its main reservoir host, the great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus). This is a rare empirical example of the two types of abundance thresholds for infectious disease-invasion and persistence- operating in a single wildlife population. We parameterized predictive models that should reduce the costs of plague surveillance in central Asia and thereby encourage its continuance.

Animals↗

PubMed2003

The wood mouse is a natural host for Murid herpesvirus 4.

Infection of laboratory mice by the Murid herpesvirus 4 (MHV-4) is a much studied model system for gammaherpesvirus pathogenesis. Little, however, is known about its natural host range, epidemiology and pathogenesis outside the laboratory. We have studied MHV-4 infection in free-living murids in the UK. Using a combination of serology and PCR analysis, we found that MHV-4 was endemic in wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus) but not in two species of voles (Clethrionomys glareolus, Microtus agrestis). The sites of detection of viral DNA were the lungs and, less commonly, the spleen, emphasizing the importance of the former in virus persistence during natural infection and confirming similar data in laboratory mice.

Animals↗