Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Piedmont South Atlantic Coast CESU

The summary for the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Piedmont South Atlantic Coast CESU grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the Geological Survey, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Piedmont South Atlantic Coast CESU: The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research to assess the infectivity of influenza A viruses (IAVs) across seasons in North American wetlands under ecologically relevant conditions. The maintenance of infectious IAVs in North American wetlands may influence the indirect transmission of viruses among wild birds and subsequent dispersal through space and time. It is unknown if IAVs remain infectious in North American wetlands for extended periods, seeding outbreaks in wild birds across seasons or in free-ranging poultry after migratory birds have departed from wintering areas. As such, research to understand the persistence of infectious IAVs in the environment has been identified as a priority for improving epidemiological models of transmission. The CESU partner will conduct a series of related field and lab experiments to test if IAVs shed by wild birds can be detected, cultured, and transmitted to live captive birds following an extended period (e.g., several months) under both laboratory-controlled and field conditions at ecologically relevant doses. Furthermore, seek to understand how environmental factors, such as water chemistry and temperature, relate virus persistence.