Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Pennsylvania
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Summary: Chronic wasting disease is a fatal neurological, disease caused by an infectious prion protein, which affects economically and ecologically important members of the family Cervidae. Single nucleotide polymorphisms within the prion gene have been linked to differential susceptibil-ity to the disease in many species. Wildlife managers are seeking to determine the frequencies of disease-associated alleles and genotypes and delineate spatial genetic patterns. The CWDPRNP package, implemented in program R, provides a unified framework for analyzing prion gene varia-bility and spatial structure. Availability and Implementation: The CWDPRNP package, manual, and example data files are available at http://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/labs/walter-lab. This package is available for all commonly used platforms.