Jacintha G.B. van Dijk

Sovon, Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology · Department of Research

Animal movements may contribute to the spread of pathogens. In the case of avian influenza virus, [migratory] birds have been suggested to play a role in the spread of some highly pathogenic strains (e.g. H5N1, H5N8), as well as their low pathogenic precursors which circulate naturally in wild birds. For a better understanding of the emergence and...

1.Migratory birds are an increasing focus of interest when it comes to infection dynamics and the spread of avian influenza viruses (AIV). However, we lack detailed understanding migratory birds’ contribution to local AIV prevalence levels and their downstream socio‐economic costs and threats. 2.To explain the potential differential roles of migra...

Low pathogenic influenza A virus (LPIAV) prevalence and subtype distribution differs between and across bird taxa. A crucial factor in the epidemiology of these viruses and virus subtypes is the ability to transmit between and within different host taxa and individuals. Successful viral transmission depends on availability of susceptible hosts and...

Background Movement behaviour is fundamental to the ecology of animals and their interactions with other organisms, and as such contributes to ecosystem dynamics. Waterfowl are key players in ecological processes in wetlands and surrounding habitats through predator-prey interactions and their transportation of nutrients and other organisms. Unders...

Locomotion and other physical activities by free-living animals may influence immune function and disease susceptibility. This influence may be a consequence of energetic trade-offs or other mechanisms that are often, but not always, inseparably linked to an animal’s life history (e.g., flight and migration). Ecological immunology has mainly focuse...

Wildlife pathogens can alter host fitness. Low pathogenic avian influenza virus (LPAIV) infection is thought to have negligible impacts on wild birds; however, effects of infection in free-living birds are largely unstudied. We investigated the extent to which LPAIV infection and shedding were associated with body condition and immune status in fre...

Migratory and resident hosts have been hypothesized to fulfil distinct roles in infectious disease dynamics. However, the contribution of resident and migratory hosts to wildlife infectious disease epidemiology, including that of low pathogenic avian influenza virus (LPAIV) in wild birds, has largely remained unstudied. During an autumn H3 LPAIV ep...

Maternal antibodies protect chicks from infection with pathogens early in life and may impact pathogen dynamics due to the alteration of the proportion of susceptible individuals in a population. We investigated the transfer of maternal antibodies against avian influenza virus (AIV) in a key AIV host species, the mallard ( Anas platyrhynchos ). Com...

A large proportion of infectious diseases in man originate in wildlife, for example HIV/ AIDS, SARS, Ebola haemorrhagic fever and just recently H7N9 influenza. These zoonotic pathogens may pose a serious threat for humans, requiring a better understanding of the ecology and transmission of these pathogens in their natural (wildlife) hosts. Unravell...

Hydrogen stable isotopes (δ2H) in feathers are used to determine the origin and migration strategy of birds. To identify the geographic location of the site of feather synthesis, calibration curves for the relation between feather δ2H and amount-weighted growing-season δ2H in precipitation are used to generate feather δ2H isoscapes. Factors like sp...

Similar to other infectious diseases, the prevalence of low pathogenic avian influenza viruses ( LPAIV ) has been seen to exhibit marked seasonal variation. However, mechanisms driving this variation in wild birds have yet to be tested. We investigated the validity of three previously suggested drivers for the seasonal dynamics in LPAIV infections...

Animals foraging in groups may benefit from a faster detection of food and predators, but competition by conspecifics may reduce intake rate. Competition may also alter the foraging behaviour of individuals, which can be influenced by dominance status and the way food is distributed over the environment. Many studies measuring the effects of compet...

Adult Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica exhibit strong sexual size dimorphism in the length of the outermost tail feathers, which are longer in males compared with females. This trait is traditionally used to sex adult Barn Swallows in the field. However, due to the wear and breakage of the tips of the outer tail feather and tail moult during the non-b...

Different spatial distributions of food abundance and predators may urge birds to make a trade-off between food intake and danger. Such a trade-off might be solved in different ways in migrant birds that either follow a time-minimizing or energy-minimizing strategy; these strategies have been assigned to two sub-species of Bar-tailed Godwits Limosa...

In the twentieth century the population of Black-headed Gulls Larus ridibundus in the Netherlands and the rest of Western Europe initially increased strongly. From the end of the 1980’s onwards the population has declined again. To elucidate the reasons for this decline we started a seven-year research program in 1997 to investigate the reproductio...

Multiformity is a concept which should be guaranteed in the newspaper industry to ensure that newspapers publish various visions. In the Netherlands, there is a discussion on multiformity of the daily newspapers, since the newspaper market is dominated by three publishers. In this study, articles of five Dutch national newspapers are analyzed conce...

Food choice of Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Herring Gulls and further indications for habitat choice of both species in the coastal areas of Noord-Holland, The Netherlands Studies of the breeding ecology of gulls nesting in the Kelderhuispolder at Texel showed that in three consecutive seasons (2006-2008), the reproductive success was very low in...