infection in mammals in Florida: New insight into the transmission of in the southeastern United States.

In Latin America, synanthropic mammalian reservoirs maintain , a parasitic protozoan, where they facilitate the transmission of the parasite to humans and other reservoir hosts in peridomestic settings. In the United States, raccoons () and Virginia opossums () are known synanthropic reservoir hosts; however, the role these species have in the peridomestic transmission cycle in the US is not well understood. This study aimed to identify the suite of mammalian reservoirs of in Florida. We also compared infection prevalence in raccoon populations sampled from within and outside of the estimated distribution of the common vector in Florida to gain insight into how the arthropod vector distribution impacts the distribution of infected reservoirs in the state. Finally, to investigate the impact of peridomestic landscapes on parasite prevalence, we compared the prevalence of -infected raccoons and opossums across five paired peridomestic and sylvatic sites. We live-trapped and collected peripheral blood samples from 135 raccoons, 112 opossums, 18 nine-banded armadillos (), and nine species of rodents in north central Florida. Using quantitative PCR methods, we found that raccoons (42.2%, 95% CI [34.2-50.7%]) and opossums (50.9%, 95% CI [41.8-60.0%]) were infected with and the prevalence across habitats was similar for both raccoons (peridomestic: n = 77, 44.2%, 95% CI [33.6-55.3%], sylvatic: n = 58, 39.7%, 95% CI [28.1-52.5%]) and opossums (peridomestic: n = 66, 48.5%, 95% CI [36.8-60.3%], sylvatic: n = 46, 54.3%, 95% CI [40.2-67.8%]). Raccoons sampled outside the estimated distribution of were not infected with (n = 73, 0.0%, 95% CI [0.0-5.0%]). Our study did not indicate that peridomestic habitats in Florida maintained a higher infection prevalence than their sylvatic counterparts; however, we did find a difference in prevalence within vs. outside the estimated vector distribution in Florida.