Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zürich, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland.
Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Research Programme, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, PO Box 65, 00014, Finland.
Proc Biol Sci. 2023 Sep 13;290(2006):20231486. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2023.1486.
Viral diversity has been discovered across scales from host individuals to populations. However, the drivers of viral community assembly are still largely unknown. Within-host viral communities are formed through co-infections, where the interval between the arrival times of viruses may vary. Priority effects describe the timing and order in which species arrive in an environment, and how early colonizers impact subsequent community assembly. To study the effect of the first-arriving virus on subsequent infection patterns of five focal viruses, we set up a field experiment using naïve plants as sentinels during a seasonal virus epidemic. Using joint species distribution modelling, we find both positive and negative effects of early season viral infection on late season viral colonization patterns. The direction of the effect depends on both the host genotype and which virus colonized the host early in the season. It is well established that co-occurring viruses may change the virulence and transmission of viral infections. However, our results show that priority effects may also play an important, previously unquantified role in viral community assembly. The assessment of these temporal dynamics within a community ecological framework will improve our ability to understand and predict viral diversity in natural systems.
病毒多样性已在从宿主个体到种群的多个尺度上被发现。然而，病毒群落组装的驱动因素在很大程度上仍然未知。在宿主内的病毒群落是通过共同感染形成的，其中病毒到达的时间间隔可能会有所不同。优先效应描述了物种在环境中到达的时间和顺序，以及早期殖民者如何影响后续的群落组装。为了研究第一个到达的病毒对随后五个焦点病毒感染模式的影响，我们在季节性病毒流行期间使用天真的植物作为哨兵进行了现场实验。通过联合物种分布模型，我们发现早期季节病毒感染对后期季节病毒定殖模式既有积极影响，也有消极影响。影响的方向取决于宿主基因型和哪个病毒在季节早期定植宿主。共同出现的病毒可能会改变病毒感染的毒力和传播，这一点已得到充分证实。然而，我们的研究结果表明，优先效应也可能在病毒群落组装中发挥重要的、以前未量化的作用。在群落生态框架内评估这些时间动态将提高我们理解和预测自然系统中病毒多样性的能力。
