Endemic hantavirus infection impairs the winter survival of its rodent host

The influence of pathogens on host fitness is one of the key questions in infection ecology. Hantaviruses have coevolved with their hosts and are generally thought to have little or no effect on host survival or reproduction. We examined the effect of Puumala virus (PUUV) infection on the winter survival of bank voles (Myodes glareolus), the host of this virus. The data were collected by monitoring 22 islands over three consecutive winters (a total of 55 island populations) in an endemic area of central Finland. We show that PUUV infected bank voles had a significantly lower overwinter survival probability than antibody negative bank voles. Antibody negative female bank voles from low-density populations living on large islands had the highest survival. The results were similar at the population level as the spring population size and density were negatively correlated with PUUV prevalence in the autumn. Our results provide the first evidence for a significant effect of PUUV on host survival suggesting that hantaviruses, and endemic pathogens in general, deserve even more attention in studies of host population dynamics.     

Economics of harvesting age-structured fish populations

A generic age-structured model is developed to derive analytical results on optimal harvesting. Given two age classes, knife-edge selectivity, and no stock-dependent harvesting cost, the steady state is a unique saddle point. Adding harvesting cost does not alter the uniqueness, given that the utility is linear. Under specific conditions such as nonselective gear, optimal harvesting is proved to be a stationary cycle that represents pulse fishing. Optimal steady states are different if age-structured information is ignored and optimization is based on traditional biomass variables. This implies that the existence of optimal sustainable harvesting depends on age-structured information. Given a specific set of conditions such as low interest rate and knife-edge selectivity, optimal harvesting converges toward a unique saddle point independently of the number of age classes.