Effects of Bird Community Structure on West Nile Virus Incidence in the Northern Great Plains

West Nile virus (WNV) was introduced to the Western Hymisphere near New York City, USA in 1999. In three years\u27 time WNV spread west to the northern Great Plains and in 2003 caused a large outbreak of WNV disease in humans. Multiple factors can influence the transmission dynamics of the WNV disease system and these factors have been shown to vary spatially. This study of the northern Great Plains used a local modeling technique to: (1) determine if variables used in the models were non-stationary; and (2) determine if associations exist between WNV incidence in humans and four bird community structure indices (American Robin abundance, species richness, Shannon\u27s diversity, and community competence). The results revealed that the model containing the Shannon\u27� diversity index value performed the best and that the independent variables temperature, precipitation, and Shannon\u27s diversity varied with geographic location. The model highlighted that bird diversity can have a negative relationship with WNV incidence, but also revealed that the relationship can vary from location to location. Spatial variability should be considered in future vector-borne disease modeling efforts