In the model, the proportion of overwintering adults remained the same under the extended favorable conditions, but absolute numbers increased, thus facilitating the limited winter transmission to susceptible voles within the population.
However, PUUV transmission among the sexually mature bank voles, within the studied system (23 ) and in a similar endemic region (24 ), had been shown to be highest during their reproductive summer period.
The Anglesey Water Vole project within the Menter Mon organisation is working to establish how well-spread the mink are with a view to trapping and removing them.
The incidence of nephropathia epidemica was significantly correlated with bank vole numbers within monitored rodent populations in part of the region.
As genetic studies in prairie voles and related vole species within the genus Microtus have been limited to a handful of candidate genes, the BAC library and the prairie vole-mouse comparative cytogenetic map that we describe here are an essential first step towards the development of a comprehensive suite of genomic resources for this species.
They found that voles living within a single patch of forest were very closely related; voles living in separate patches were not closely related; and voles living in patches connected by corridors fell in between.
This increased risk for human exposure to PUUV in autumn due to infestation of dwellings by bank voles is consistent with the fact that the within-year vole population usually peaks in autumn (16 ), when the PUUV-infected bank voles generally appear in highest numbers (23, 29 ).
In agreement with previously published data (10 ), the number of PUUV genome copies in bank vole tissues was within the range of 10 10/μg of total RNA, i.e., ≈100-fold higher than in tissues of the case-patient.
To be in the perimeter, the entire trunk of the vole had to be within 12 cm from the walls of the enclosure.
We wondered if this inter-specific variation occurred without change in the underlying developmental process, as in the case of the intra-specific variation within the bank vole, or if the developmental process itself could be affected at this evolutionary scale.
