About the Authors

Ariel L. Rivas

alrivas@unm.edu

Affiliations Center for Global Health, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America, Population Health and Pathobiology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America

Mark D. Jankowski

Affiliation Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America

Renata Piccinini

Affiliation Animal Pathology, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

Gabriel Leitner

Affiliation Kimron Veterinary Institute, Bet Dagan, Israel

Daniel Schwarz

Affiliation Animal Sciences Department, Microbiology and Animal Hygiene, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany

Kevin L. Anderson

Affiliation Population Health and Pathobiology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America

Jeanne M. Fair

Affiliation Biosecurity and P. Health, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States of America

Almira L. Hoogesteijn

Affiliation Human Ecology, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados (CINVESTAV), Mérida, Yucatán, México

Wilfried Wolter

Affiliation Regierungspräsidium Gießen, Wetzlar, Germany

Marcelo Chaffer

Affiliation Department of Health Management, Atlantic Veterinary College, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, Canada

Shlomo Blum

Affiliation Kimron Veterinary Institute, Bet Dagan, Israel

Tom Were

Affiliation Center for Global Health, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America

Stephen N. Konah

Affiliation Center for Global Health, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America

Prakash Kempaiah

Affiliation Center for Global Health, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America

John M. Ong’echa

Affiliation Center for Global Health, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America

Ulrike S. Diesterbeck

Affiliation Animal Sciences Department, Microbiology and Animal Hygiene, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany

Rachel Pilla

Affiliation Animal Pathology, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

Claus-Peter Czerny

Affiliation Animal Sciences Department, Microbiology and Animal Hygiene, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany

James B. Hittner

Affiliation Department of Psychology, College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America

James M. Hyman

Affiliation Department of Mathematics, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America

Douglas J. Perkins

Affiliation Center for Global Health, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and want to declare that AL Rivas has a patent granted more than five years ago (‘Method for diagnosis of, and determination of susceptibility of bovine mastitis', US Patent number 6,979550, granted to AL Rivas, M Tokman, and FW Quimby on December 27, 2005). A co-author also possesses a patent granted more than five years ago (‘Isolated strains of Staphylococcus aureus and vaccines manufactured therefrom’, US Patent number 6,544,529 B1, issued to Z Trainin, G Leitner, and E Liubashewsky on April 3, 2003). In addition, two patent applications were filed four or more years ago on AL Rivas's behalf (‘Method of identifying clusters and connectivity between clusters’, requested by MG Tokman, SJ Schwager, RR Rodriguez, KL Anderson, RN Gonzalez, and AL Rivas [Patent application number: 2009/0082997 A1, filed on December 21, 2006], and ‘Method for diagnosis of and infectious disease stage and determination of treatment’, requested by AL Rivas, FW Quimby and MG Tokman [Patent application number 2009/0319191 A1, filed &SetFont Typeface="43";on June 24, 2008]), which are not granted at the present time. There are no further patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Assisted in the graphic presentation of data structures: PK. Conceived and designed the experiments: ALR ALH. Performed the experiments: MDJ R. Piccinini GL DS KLA WW SB TW SNK JMO USD R. Pilla. Analyzed the data: ALR JMH JBH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JMF MC C-PC. Wrote the paper: ALR DJP.