Juxtaposition between host population structures: implications for disease transmission in a sympatric cervid community

Sympatric populations of phylogenetically related species are often vulnerable to similar communicable diseases. Although some host populations may exhibit spatial structure, other hosts within the community may have unstructured populations. Thus, individuals from unstructured host populations may act as interspecific vectors among discrete subpopulations of sympatric alternate hosts. We used a cervid-bovine tuberculosis (Mycobacterium bovis) system to investigate the landscape-scale potential for bovine tuberculosis transmission within a nonmigratory white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and elk (Cervus canadensis) community. Using landscape population genetics, we tested for genetic and spatial structure in white-tailed deer. We then compared these findings with the sympatric elk population that is structured and which has structure that correlates spatially and genetically to physiognomic landscape features. Despite genetic structure that indicates the white-tailed deer population forms three sympatric clusters, the absence of spatial structure suggested that intraspecific pathogen transmission is not likely to be limited by physiognomic landscape features. The potential for intraspecific transmission among subpopulations of elk is low due to spatial population structure. Given that white-tailed deer are abundant, widely distributed, and exhibit a distinct lack of spatial population structure, white-tailed deer likely pose a greater threat as bovine tuberculosis vectors among elk subpopulations than elk.