January 2013, WSU News
Washington State University researchers have linked orchards and vineyards with a greater prevalence of West Nile virus in mosquitoes and the insects’ ability to spread the virus to birds, horses and people.
The finding, reported in the latest issue of the journal PLOS ONE, is the most finely scaled look at the interplay between land use and the virus’s activity in key hosts. By giving a more detailed description of how the disease moves across the landscape, the study opens the door to management efforts that might bring the disease under control, says David Crowder, a WSU entomologist and the paper’s lead author.
Since it was first seen in New York in 1999, West Nile virus has reached across the country and… read full article