The Bird-Influenza Link (and More About Cicadas) [View all]

[McCamy Taylor]

Still sick with flu so still Googling. Question of the day: why do cicadas emerge either every 13 or every 17 years? Those two number are 4x plus one. About 6-12 months before cicadas emerge bird populations go down, suggesting that cicadas take advantage of some natural phenomenon that will reduce the number of their biggest predatory threat and therefore increase their own chances of survival. But what happens to birds on an every 4 year basis?

I found one thing--avian influenza epidemics.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2660440/

Avian influenza virus (AIV) persists in North American wild waterfowl, exhibiting major outbreaks every 2–4 years.

Every 2-4 years. If you are an enterprising species and want to play it safe, you will assume every four years. Then, you will time your emergence for some multiple of four plus one. Can I call this a "bingo"? Cicadas are not responsible for the flu. They just benefit from it. Like Donald Rumsfeld whose company made a gazillion bucks off Tamiflu.

There is more:

Avian influenza viruses (AIVs) in wild waterfowl constitute the historic source of human influenza viruses, having a rich pool of genetic and antigenic diversity that often leads to cross-species transmission. Although the emergence of H5N1 avian influenza virus onto the international scene has captured the most attention, we do not as yet understand the mechanisms that underpin AIV persistence and dynamics in the wild. We developed a novel host–pathogen model intended to describe the epidemiology of low pathogenic AIV in temperate environments. Our model takes into account seasonality in migration and breeding together with multiple modes of transmission. AIVs have been detected in unconcentrated lake water, soil swabs, and mud samples. Laboratory experiments show that AIVs persist and remain infectious in water for extended periods. However, so far, the possibility of environmental transmission of AIV has been largely overlooked. Our work shows that environmental transmission provides a parsimonious explanation for the patterns of persistence and outbreaks of AIV documented in the literature. In addition to their scientific importance, our conclusions impact the design of control policies for avian influenza by emphasizing the dramatic and long-term role that environmental persistence of pathogens may play at the epidemic level.