Ecological and Evolutionary Factors Affecting Rabies Virus Infection in Colonial Insectivorous Bats

An introductory section provides a review for the role of bats as reservoirs of infectious diseases, and highlights the rationale for investigations of host life history, ecology, and evolution in regard to bat epizootiology. Chapter 1 presents field investigations of life history, ecology, body condition, and rabies virus neutralizing antibody seroprevalence in six natural colonies of Brazilian free-tailed bats from caves and bridge roosts in Texas. Chapter 2 presents a replicate field investigation of life history, ecology, body condition, and rabies virus neutralizing antibody seroprevalence in six natural colonies of Brazilian free tailed bats from bridges and bat house roosts in Florida and Georgia. Chapter 3 evaluates the relative influence of local and landscape factors on life history, ecology, body condition and rabies virus neutralizing antibody seroprevalence in Brazilian free-tailed bats in the southern United States. Chapter 4 describes the role of host population genetic structure in big brown bat rabies virus epizootiology, and describes comparative pathogenicity of two big brown bat rabies virus isolates across several captive experimental infection studies. The information presented has been used in the development of individual, population, and metapopulation models of rabies virus epizootiology in bats.