Mechanisms of biodiversity between Campylobacter sequence types in a flock of broiler-breeder chickens.

Commercial poultry flocks frequently harbor the dangerous bacterial pathogen Campylobacter . As exclusion efforts frequently fail, there is interest in potential ecologically informed solutions. A long-term study of Campylobacter sequence types was used to investigate the competitive framework of the Campylobacter metacommunity and understand how multiple sequence types simultaneously co-occur in a flock of chickens. A combination of matrix and patch-occupancy models was used to estimate parameters describing the competition, transmission, and mortality of each sequence type. It was found that Campylobacter sequence types form a strong hierarchical framework within a flock of chickens and occupied a broad spectrum of transmission-mortality trade-offs. Upon further investigation of how biodiversity is thus maintained within the flock, it was found that the demographic capabilities of Campylobacter , such as mortality and transmission, could not explain the broad biodiversity of sequence types seen, suggesting that external factors such as host-bird health and seasonality are important elements in maintaining biodiversity of Campylobacter sequence types.