Wildlife Trust :: Conservation Medicine

CONSERVATION MEDICINE EXPERTS

A. Alonso Aguirre
Vice President for Conservation Medicine

Christine Banks
Program Coordinator for Conservation Medicine

Gerardo Suzan
Postdoctoral Fellow

Andres Gomez
Graduate Student

CHRISTINE BANKS
received her B.S. in Natural Resources from Cornell University in 2003. During her undergraduate career, she assisted in field trials in the Department of Plant Breeding, and completed an internship project on invasive plant species in the Cayuga Lake Basin at Cornell Plantations. In addition, she participated in a project researching nutrient and metals standards for different compost end usages while working for the Cornell Waste Management Institute at the Cornell Center for the Environment. Christine is currently the Program Coordinator for the Conservation Medicine, providing programmatic support for the Conservation Medicine Program at Wildlife Trust, and Subscriptions Officer and Editorial Assistant for the journal EcoHealth. She is also the Mid-Atlantic States Program Coordinator for the SEANET program, a collaborative project between Tufts CCM and Wildlife Trust. Her current interests include sea turtle health and seabird mortality, and she will begin her Masters degree in the Conservation Biology program at Columbia University in the fall of 2006.

>>back to top

GERARDO SUZÁN
has worked with ecology of vertebrates and wildlife diseases. His work has been centered on researching infectious diseases and conservation biology in Costa Rica, Panama, USA and Mexico. He has worked to connect conservation biology and infectious disease dynamics, including zoonoses like hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, toxoplasmosis and rabies. Currently Dr. Suzán works as a postdoctoral fellow at Wildlife Trust developing different projects in Mexico, including the ecology of West Nile Virus and other infectious diseases affecting endangered species.

Interest:

Ecology of infectious diseases in vertebrate communities.
The effects of habitat fragmentation and diversity loss on infectious diseases.
Conservation Medicine.

Current projects:

Ecology of West Nile Virus in Mexico. A collaboration with Mexican and American Institutions including Wildlife Trust, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), Instituto Politecnico Nacional (IPN), University of New Mexico and Columbia University.

Ecology and Monitoring of Emerging Diseases in Neotropical Migratory Birds in Mexico. A collaboration with Mexican and American Institutions including Wildlife Trust, UNAM, IPN, and University of New Mexico.

Ecology of infectious diseases in mammal communities in Brazil (Pantal) in collaboration with IPÊ (Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas), Consortium of Conservation Medicine, and Conservation Medicine Wildlife Trust.

Papers:

Suzán, G., J. T. Giermakowski, E. Marcé, H. Suzán-Azpiri, B. Armién, and T. L.Yates. Modelling Hantavirus Reservoir Species Dominance In High Seroprevalence Areas On The Azuero Peninsula Of Panama. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. In Press
Pacheco, J., G. Ceballos, G. Daily, P. R. Ehrlich, G. Suzán, B. Rodríguez– Herrera y E. Marcé. 2006. Diversidad, historia natural y conservación de los mamíferos de la región de San Vito de Coto Brus, Costa Rica. Revista de Biología Tropical. 54 (1): 000-000.
Suzán, G., and G. Ceballos. 2005. The role of feral mammals on wildlife infectious disease prevalence in two nature reserves within Mexico city limits. Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine. 36:479-484
Suzán G. El Murciélago vampiro (Desmodus rotundus). Los mamíferos silvestres de México. 2005. Gerardo Ceballos y Gisselle Oliva Editores. Ed. Fondo de Cultura Económica y Conabio. 1986 pp
Giuggioli1, L., G. Abramson, V. M. Kenkre1, G. Suzán, E. Marcé, and T. L. Yates. Difusion and Home Range Parameters from Rodent Population Measurements in Panama. 2005. Bulletin of Mathematical Biology. 67: 1135-1149
Salazar-Bravo, J., B. Armién, G. Suzán, A. Armién, L. Ruedas, M. Avila, Y. Zaldivar, J. Pascale, F. Gracia, and T. Yates. 2004. Serosurvey of wild rodents for Hantaviruses in Panama, 2000-2002. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 40: 103-109.
Ruedas, L. A., J. Salazar–Bravo, D. S. Tinnin, B. Armién, L. Cáceres, A. García, M. Ávila Díaz, F. Gracia, G. Suzán, C. J. Peters, T. L. Yates, and J. N. Mills. 2004. Community ecology of small mammal populations in Panamá following an outbreak of Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Journal of Vector Ecology 29: 177-191.
Daily, G. C., G. Ceballos, J. Pacheco, G. Suzán, and A. Sánchez-Azofeifa. 2003. Countryside Biogeography of Neotropical Mammals: Conservation Opportunities in Agricultural Landscapes of Costa Rica. Conservation Biology 17:1814-1826.
Suzán, G., G. Ceballos, J. Mills, T. G. Ksiazek, and T. Yates. 2001. Serologic evidence of hantavirus infection in sigmodontine rodents in Mexico. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 37: 391-393
Suzán, G., F. Galindo. and G. Ceballos. 2000. Importancia del estudio de enfermedades en la conservación de fauna silvestre. Revista Veterinaria México 31: 223-230.
Ceballos, G, G. Daily, P. Ehrlich, J. Pacheco, G. Suzán, A. Sanchez, B. Stephens, and J. Mieren, 1999. Countryside biogeography of Neotropical mammals: A Costa Rican case study. Organization for Tropical Studies, Wilson Botanical Garden, Las Cruces Biological Station. Amigos Newsletter 52:5-7.

>>back to top

ANDRES GOMEZ
is currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University. His dissertation research is part of a larger CCM project and involves analyzing West Nile virus transmission cycles in wild mammal species along an urban to rural gradient. West Nile virus is transmitted in a mosquito-bird-mosquito cycle in which mammals are believed to be incidental dead-end hosts and thus have historically been regarded as unimportant. However, mammals are frequently infected, some species have been found to develop viremias capable of infecting mosquitoes and recent research demonstrated that high viremia is not a requirement for mosquito infection. To date, the role of mammal species in the transmission cycle of WNV is largely unknown, and in need of systematic field and laboratory research. His research will analyze the conservation and human health implications of West Nile virus transmission in an ignored component of the transmission cycle of this emerging infectious disease. Partners for this project include the New York Department of Health, the Smithsonian Institution and the Wildlife Center of Virginia.

Andres received a B.S. in Biology from the Universidad de Los Andes and a D.V.M from the Universidad de La Salle in Bogota, Colombia. Before the start of his graduate studies he worked at the National Zoological Park’s Conservation and Research Center (www.si.edu/crc) in projects involving the behavioral ecology and endocrinology of several wildlife species including sable antelopes and giant pandas.
His research interests include conservation medicine, the relationship between biodiversity and human health, and the conservation of Neotropical ecosystems. In addition he has worked on freshwater conservation and international environmental policy projects.

Papers

Esty, D.C. et al. 2006. The 2006 Pilot Environmental Performance Index. Manuscript to be presented at the 2006 World Economic Forum. Available online at www.yale.edu/epi.
Gomez, A., Suzan, G., Aguirre, A. Habitat fragmentation and disease ecology: A review of empirical studies. In review.
Gomez A., Jewell E., Walker S., Brown J. 2004. Use of salivary steroid analyses to assess ovarian cycles in the Indian rhinoceros. Zoo Biology 23: 501-512
Brown J. et al. 2004. Successful artificial insemination of an Asian elephant at the National Zoological Park. Zoo Biology 23:45-63
Gomez, A. & Aguirre, A. Disease emergence and the illegal wildlife traffic. In Prep.
Gomez, A. & Nichols, E. Biodiversity and human health. Module accepted for publication by the Network of Conservation Educators & Practitioners. In Prep.

>>back to top