ArticlePLoS neglected tropical diseases2013
Plague circulation and population genetics of the reservoir Rattus rattus: the influence of topographic relief on the distribution of the disease within the Madagascan focus.
Article in PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Viral pathogens in urban rats: A one health systematic review of global surveillance evidence.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026Review
- Clinical severity and health-seeking behaviors of cases with hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome: A comparative study across spatial clusters in Jiangxi Province, China.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2026Article
- Article
- Evaluating the early diversification of Yersinia pestis and its phylogeographic expansion over 96 years of evolution in Madagascar.Communications biology · 2025Article
- High genetic diversity of the himalayan marmot relative to plague outbreaks in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China.BMC genomics · 2024Article
- Reproductive ecology of the black rat (Rattus rattus) in Madagascar: the influence of density-dependent and -independent effects.Integrative zoology · 2024Article
- Influence of Sociospatial determinants on knowledge, attitudes and practices related to the plague in a population living in endemic areas in the central highlands, Madagascar.BMC public health · 2021Article
- Using genetic relatedness to understand heterogeneous distributions of urban rat-associated pathogens.Evolutionary applications · 2021Article
- Human plague: An old scourge that needs new answers.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2020Review
- Correction: Plague in Zimbabwe from 1974 to 2018: A review article.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2020Article
- Plague in Zimbabwe from 1974 to 2018: A review article.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2019Review
- Temporal phylogeography of Yersinia pestis in Madagascar: Insights into the long-term maintenance of plague.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2017Article
- Genetic structure and gene flow of the flea Xenopsylla cheopis in Madagascar and Mayotte.Parasites & vectors · 2017Article
- Climatic and evolutionary drivers of phase shifts in the plague epidemics of colonial India.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2016Article
- Zoonoses As Ecological Entities: A Case Review of Plague.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2016Review
- Highly diverse morbillivirus-related paramyxoviruses in wild fauna of the southwestern Indian Ocean Islands: evidence of exchange between introduced and endemic small mammals.Journal of virology · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundLandscape may affect the distribution of infectious diseases by influencing the population density and dispersal of hosts and vectors. Plague (Yersinia pestis infection) is a highly virulent, re-emerging disease, the ecology of which has been scarcely studied in Africa. Human seroprevalence data for the major plague focus of Madagascar suggest that plague spreads heterogeneously across the landscape as a function of the relief. Plague is primarily a disease of rodents. We therefore investigated the relationship between disease distribution and the population genetic structure of the black rat, Rattus rattus, the main reservoir of plague in Madagascar. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL
findingsWe conducted a comparative study of plague seroprevalence and genetic structure (15 microsatellite markers) in rat populations from four geographic areas differing in topology, each covering about 150-200 km(2) within the Madagascan plague focus. The seroprevalence levels in the rat populations mimicked those previously reported for humans. As expected, rat populations clearly displayed a more marked genetic structure with increasing relief. However, the relationship between seroprevalence data and genetic structure differs between areas, suggesting that plague distribution is not related everywhere to the effective dispersal of rats. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Genetic diversity estimates suggested that plague epizootics had only a weak impact on rat population sizes. In the highlands of Madagascar, plague dissemination cannot be accounted for solely by the effective dispersal of the reservoir. Human social activities may also be involved in spreading the disease in rat and human populations.
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