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¹ Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-2258, USA
² Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia, Departamento de Etología y Fauna Silvestre, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, Distrito Federal 04510, México
³ Departamento de Enfermedades Emergentes, Instituto de Diagnóstico y Referencia Epidemiológicos, Secretaría de Salud, Sto. Tomás 11340, Distrito Federal, México
⁴ Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, Conservation International, Arlington, Virginia, 22202, USA
⁶ Corresponding author (email: neotomodon{at}hotmail.com)

ABSTRACT:   Wild rodents (n=248) were trapped in two ecologically distinct sites at El Cielo Biosphere Reserve in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, during the summer of 2003. Samples from 199 individuals were tested for Hantavirus antibodies by an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Hantavirus antibodies to recombinant Sin Nombre virus nucleocapsid protein were found in seven rodents (3.5%) of a single species, Peromyscus levipes. Antibody-positive rodents were found only in the Cloud Forest site, which had lower rodent species diversity than the Tropical Subdecidous Forest site. Although the identity of the virus in P. levipes remains to be determined, our study provides further evidence that Hantavirus antibody–positive individuals are prevalent in the rodent fauna of Mexico. This is the first survey for Hantavirus antibodies in the rodent fauna of Tamaulipas and the first report of P. levipes as a potential host for a Hantavirus.
  Key words:  Community composition, Hantavirus, México, Peromyscus, sigmodontine rodents, Tamaulipas.

⁵ Current address: Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-4210, USA;