Roads and forest edges facilitate yellow fever virus dispersion.
Abstract
Landscape connectivity is important for a wide range of ecological processes, including to disease spread, once it describes the degree to which landscapes facilitate or impede vector and hosts dispersion. Understanding connectivity is extremely important to identify where pathogens can move, and at what speed, allowing the organization of vaccination campaigns or other preventive measures.To better understand the effects of landscape connectivity on yellow fever virus (YFV) dispersion in Brazil, we used a network approach and modelled the movement of non-human primates' cases, the so-called epizootic events, over time. The networks consider each epizootic event as a node and the dispersion between nodes as links. Those links were established considering, respectively, the date of each epizootic event, the distance among the nodes and the permeability of the landscape between each pair of nodes. Our results demonstrated that on average YFV dispersed 1.42 km/day, with the largest movement being 6.9 km/day. Dispersions were longer in summer (1.2 km/day) than in winter (0.22 km/day). Most dispersal movements occurred up to 1 km/day (71%) and within a week after the arrival of the virus in the source node (73%), except in winter, where dispersions occurred within a period of up to 20 days. The best model indicates that YFV disperses mainly through roads adjacent to forest areas, and along forest edges (within a range of 100 m) in interface with agricultural areas, water and forestry areas. Core areas of urban, agricultural and forest regions were important barriers for virus movement.Synthesis and applications. Through landscape connectivity analyses, we provided here the first evidence that highly fragmented landscapes with a wide road network and large densities of forest edges facilitate yellow fever virus propagation, and that the maintenance of large blocks of forest can help to inhibit this spread. These results can contribute to guide forest restoration and landscape management actions in order to amplify health benefits related to restoration projects, in addition to their benefits for biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation.