Tracking potential Leptospira sources following human cases of leptospirosis: A One Health approach applied to an ecosystem in Brittany, France.

Pathogenic Leptospira can cause leptospirosis: a widespread, potentially fatal bacterial zoonosis whose risk is mediated by the soil and water features, animal host distributions, meaning the local ecosystem. When human cases of leptospirosis occur, it is challenging to track down their source because ecosystem-level epidemiological knowledge on Leptospira is needed. Between 2016 and 2019 in a focal riparian ecosystem, the human population experienced an outbreak and successive cases of leptospirosis attributable to L. kirschneri and L. interrogans. The epidemiological investigation was carried out using the One Health approach, as described in international health guidelines. As a first step in this process, we investigated leptospiral carriage in the main animal hosts found in the region. We sampled 143 nutrias, 17 muskrats, and 10 Norway rats using convenient trapping. DNA was extracted from their kidneys, lungs, and urine and subjected to real-time PCR (RT-PCR) targeting the Leptospira 16S rDNA and lfb1 genes. In the farms along the river's stretch of interest, we sampled serum from 439 cattle and used a microscopic agglutination test to detect the presence of antibodies against Leptospira. Urine samples were concomitantly obtained from 145 cattle and were used in two analyses: RT-PCR targeting the Leptospira 16S rDNA gene and Leptospira culturing. We found th, wt rodents were the most likely source of the L. interrogans behind the human cases. The cattle tested negative for Leptospira DNA but positive for antibodies against the serogroups implicated in the human cases. We failed to identify the potential source of the L. kirschneri responsible for several human cases of leptospirosis. Our results call for further clarification of the Leptospira maintenance community, which may comprise known maintenance hosts, such as rodents, as well as taxa not commonly considered to be maintenance hosts but that can still spread Leptospira. The resulting research network will collaboratively conduct future eco-epidemiological surveys to illuminate the leptospirosis risks faced by humans and animals within ecosystems.

The feeding ecology of little auks raises questions about winter zooplankton stocks in North Atlantic surface waters.

Copepods are essential components of marine food webs worldwide. In the North Atlantic, they are thought to perform vertical migration and to remain at depths more than 500 m during winter. We challenge this concept through a study of the winter feeding ecology of little auks (Alle alle), a highly abundant planktivorous seabird from the North Atlantic. By combining stable isotope and behavioural analyses, we strongly suggest that swarms of copepods are still available to their predators in water surface layers (less than 50 m) during winter, even during short daylight periods. Using a new bioenergetic model, we estimate that the huge number (20-40 million birds) of little auks wintering off southwest Greenland consume 3600-7200 tonnes of copepods daily, strongly suggesting substantial zooplankton stocks in surface waters of the North Atlantic in the middle of the boreal winter.

A junk-food hypothesis for gannets feeding on fishery waste.

Worldwide fisheries generate large volumes of fishery waste and it is often assumed that this additional food is beneficial to populations of marine top-predators. We challenge this concept via a detailed study of foraging Cape gannets Morus capensis and of their feeding environment in the Benguela upwelling zone. The natural prey of Cape gannets (pelagic fishes) is depleted and birds now feed extensively on fishery wastes. These are beneficial to non-breeding birds, which show reduced feeding effort and high survival. By contrast, breeding gannets double their diving effort in an attempt to provision their chicks predominantly with high-quality, live pelagic fishes. Owing to a scarcity of this resource, they fail and most chicks die. Our study supports the junk-food hypothesis for Cape gannets since it shows that non-breeding birds can survive when complementing their diet with fishery wastes, but that they struggle to reproduce if live prey is scarce. This is due to the negative impact of low-quality fishery wastes on the growth patterns of gannet chicks. Marine management policies should not assume that fishery waste is generally beneficial to scavenging seabirds and that an abundance of this artificial resource will automatically inflate their populations.

Year-round recordings of behavioural and physiological parameters reveal the survival strategy of a poorly insulated diving endotherm during the Arctic winter.

Warm-blooded diving animals wintering in polar regions are expected to show a high degree of morphological adaptation allowing efficient thermal insulation. In stark contrast to other marine mammals and seabirds living at high latitudes, Arctic great cormorants Phalacrocorax carbo have very limited thermal insulation because of their partly permeable plumage. They nonetheless winter in Greenland, where they are exposed to very low air and water temperatures. To understand how poorly insulated diving endotherms survive the Arctic winter, we performed year-round recordings of heart rate, dive depth and abdominal temperature in male great cormorants using miniature data loggers. We also examined the body composition of individuals in the spring. Abdominal temperatures and heart rates of birds resting on land and diving showed substantial variability. However, neither hypothermia nor significantly lower heart rate levels were recorded during the winter months. Thus our data show no indication of general metabolic depression in great cormorants wintering in Greenland. Furthermore, great cormorants did not reduce their daily swimming time during the coldest months of the year to save energy; they continued to forage in sub-zero waters for over an hour every day. As birds spent extended periods in cold water and showed no signs of metabolic depression during the Arctic winter, their theoretical energy requirements were substantial. Using our field data and a published algorithm we estimated the daily food requirement of great cormorants wintering in Greenland to be 1170+/-110 g day(-1). This is twice the estimated food requirement of great cormorants wintering in Europe. Great cormorants survive the Arctic winter but we also show that they come close to starvation during the spring, with body reserves sufficient to fast for less than 3 days. Lack of body fuels was associated with drastically reduced body temperatures and heart rates in April and May. Concurrent, intense feeding activity probably allowed birds to restore body reserves. Our study is the first to record ecophysiological parameters in a polar animal on a year-round basis. It challenges the paradigm that efficient thermal insulation is a prerequisite to the colonization of polar habitats by endotherms.

Cormorants dive through the Polar night.

Most seabirds are visual hunters and are thus strongly affected by light levels. Dependence on vision should be problematic for species wintering at high latitudes, as they face very low light levels for extended periods during the Polar night. We examined the foraging rhythms of male great cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo) wintering north of the Polar circle in West Greenland, conducting the first year-round recordings of the diving activity in a seabird wintering at high latitudes. Dive depth data revealed that birds dived every day during the Arctic winter and did not adjust their foraging rhythms to varying day length. Therefore, a significant proportion of the dive bouts were conducted in the dark (less than 1 lux) during the Polar night. Our study underlines the stunning adaptability of great cormorants and raises questions about the capacity of diving birds to use non-visual cues to target fish.