DOI: 10.5061/dryad.8bq31
title: Data from: The Lyme disease pathogen has no effect on the survival of its rodent reservoir host

description: Zoonotic pathogens that cause devastating morbidity and mortality in
 humans may be relatively harmless in their natural reservoir hosts. The
 tick-borne bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi causes Lyme disease in humans
 but few studies have investigated whether this pathogen reduces the
 fitness of its reservoir hosts under natural conditions. We analyzed four
 years of capture-mark-recapture (CMR) data on a population of white-footed
 mice, Peromyscus leucopus, to test whether B. burgdorferi and its tick
 vector affect the survival of this important reservoir host. We used a
 multi-state CMR approach to model mouse survival and mouse infection rates
 as a function of a variety of ecologically relevant explanatory factors.
 We found no effect of B. burgdorferi infection or tick burden on the
 survival of P. leucopus. Our estimates of the probability of infection
 varied by an order of magnitude (0.051 to 0.535) and were consistent with
 our understanding of Lyme disease in the Northeastern United States. B.
 burgdorferi establishes a chronic avirulent infection in their rodent
 reservoir hosts because this pathogen depends on rodent mobility to
 achieve transmission to its sedentary tick vector. The estimates of B.
 burgdorferi infection risk will facilitate future theoretical studies on
 the epidemiology of Lyme disease.
description: MARK input file
 5bv2MARK input file used to
 conduct the multistate capture-mark-recapture analysis. In this dataset
 the mice with unknown infection states were assigned to the uninfected
 state. This text file contains the mouse ear tag identification number
 (ear.tag) and the capture history for each individual mouse (ch5). The
 capture history has 21 occasions and four states: A, B, C, and D. The
 definitions of the four states are as follows: A = susceptible juvenile B
 = infected juvenile C = susceptible adult D = infected adult The eight
 columns after the capture history column refer to the eight combinations
 of the four different areas: Control Area (cont), Mallard Road (mal),
 Nauyaug Point (nau), New Area (new) and the two sexes: female (f), male
 (m). Thus the eight columns refer to the following groups: cont.f =
 Control Area females cont.m = Control Area males mal.m = Mallard Road
 females mal.f = Mallard Road females nau.f = Nauyaug Point females nau.m =
 Nauyaug Point males new.f = New Area females new.m = New Area
 malesMARK input file
 6bv2MARK input file used to
 conduct the multistate capture-mark-recapture analysis. In this dataset
 the mice with unknown infection states were assigned to the infected with
 Borrelia burgdorferi state. This text file contains the mouse ear tag
 identification number (ear.tag) and the capture history for each
 individual mouse (ch5). The capture history has 21 occasions and four
 states: A, B, C, and D. The definitions of the four states are as follows:
 A = susceptible juvenile B = infected juvenile C = susceptible adult D =
 infected adult The eight columns after the capture history column refer to
 the eight combinations of the four different areas: Control Area (cont),
 Mallard Road (mal), Nauyaug Point (nau), New Area (new) and the two sexes:
 female (f), male (m). Thus the eight columns refer to the following
 groups: cont.f = Control Area females cont.m = Control Area males mal.m =
 Mallard Road females mal.f = Mallard Road females nau.f = Nauyaug Point
 females nau.m = Nauyaug Point males new.f = New Area females new.m = New
 Area males