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Biology Professor Charles Brown has devoted 25 years to studying birds in Nebraska.  Now his work, once limited to swallows, might help to answer questions about the movement of bird flu.

 

Because swallows are highly social, with colonies of up to 6,000 nests under a single bridge, they are optimal for studying the benefits and costs of social behavior.

 

In the beginning, Brown’s research was directed toward a parasite similar to a bed bug.  Spread of the parasites is a cost of the birds’ social behavior, Brown said.

 

In 1998, Brown started to collect data on a virus carried by the parasite.  The Buggy Creek virus is similar to Western Equine Encephalitis and usually is benign to the birds.  The virus, like many others, may lie dormant for several years then suddenly cause an outbreak in animals and perhaps humans.

 

In 2004, Brown received an $850,000 grant from National Institutes of Health to study the virus for four years.

 

Since then, he has studied virus transmission, how it moves between colonies and how it is maintained during the winter when the birds fly south.

 

Brown’s team of six graduate and undergraduate students and research technicians collects insects in the birds’ nest.  They do the work of screening for viruses at their Tulsa lab.

 

The bird flu and Buggy Creek virus are not very similar because one is a DNA virus, the other an RNA virus.  Alos, bird flu is not transmitted by insects.  However, Brown’s research is contributing to knowledge about how the movement of birds contributes to the movement of viruses.

 

That knowledge can help scientists predict where and when outbreaks of encephalitis may occur.

 

Article reprinted from The University of Tulsa Magazine, Spring/Summer 2007 issue.

 STUDENT UPDATES

 

Marisol Amaya Marquez completed her dissertation in Summer of 2007 and participated in the 9th International Pollination Symposium held in Ames, Iowa. In this meeting, she had the opportunity to share her dissertation research results with eminent authorities in the area, receiving good comments from them.

 

Daniel Howard completed his dissertation in the Summer  of 2007 and  will be starting a three-year NSF Minority Postdoctoral Fellowship where he will conduct research focused on vibrational communication in insects, and will be working at the University of Toronto Scarborough and Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand.