Today’s feature first appeared in this week’s edition of our companion service, The Birding Wire (www.birdingwire.com).
UC Berkeley researcher Erica Newman, pictured in front of chaparral, where she studies bird communities. Chaparral biodiversity, including bird communities, is largely understudied because of the difficulty of detecting wildlife in dense shrub habitats. Image Credit: David Hembry
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Birds are more important than previously recognized as hosts for Lyme disease-causing bacteria, according to a recent study published in the journal PLOS ONE. The bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which is responsible for Lyme disease, was known to be carried by white-footed mice, wood rats, western gray squirrels, and other small mammals, but fewer studies have looked at the role of birds as reservoirs.
“The role of birds in the maintenance of Lyme disease bacteria in California is poorly understood,” said lead author Erica Newman, a UC Berkeley PhD student. “This is the most extensive study of the role of birds in Lyme disease ecology in the western United States, and the first to consider the diversity of bird species, their behaviors, and their habitats in identifying which birds are truly the most important as carriers.”
Moreover, the birds in the study that were found to be important hosts of Lyme disease bacteria — such as American robins, dark-eyed juncos and golden-crowned sparrows — are coincidentally ones that are commonly found in suburban environments.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Lyme disease is the most commonly reported tick-borne illness in the United States. There are approximately 300,000 cases each year, with the large majority occurring in the eastern United States. Read more
