Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Sci Rep. 2023 Nov 18;13(1):20191. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-47448-3.
Surveillance of pathogen richness in wildlife is needed to identify host species with a high risk of zoonotic disease spillover. While several predictors of pathogen richness in wildlife hosts have been proposed, their relative importance has not been formally examined. This hampers our ability to identify potential disease reservoirs, particularly in remote areas with limited surveillance efforts. Here we analyzed 14 proposed predictors of pathogen richness using ensemble modeling and a dataset of 1040 host species to identify the most important predictors of pathogen richness in wild mammal species. After controlling for research effort, larger species geographic range area was identified to be associated with higher pathogen richness. We found evidence of duality in the relationship between the fast-slow continuum of life-history traits and pathogen richness, where pathogen richness increases near the extremities. Taxonomic orders Carnivora, Proboscidea, Artiodactyla, and Perissodactyla were predicted to host high pathogen richness. The top three species with the highest pathogen richness predicted by our ensemble model were Canis lupus, Sus scrofa, and Alces alces. Our results can help support evidence-informed pathogen surveillance and disease reservoir management to prevent the emergence of future zoonotic diseases.
需要对野生动物中的病原体丰富度进行监测，以确定宿主物种具有高的人畜共患病溢出风险。虽然已经提出了几种预测野生动物宿主中病原体丰富度的指标，但它们的相对重要性尚未得到正式检验。这限制了我们识别潜在疾病储主的能力，特别是在监测工作有限的偏远地区。在这里，我们使用集成建模和 1040 个宿主物种的数据集分析了 14 个预测病原体丰富度的指标，以确定野生哺乳动物物种中病原体丰富度的最重要预测指标。在控制研究努力之后，发现较大的物种地理范围面积与较高的病原体丰富度有关。我们发现，生活史特征快速-缓慢连续体与病原体丰富度之间的关系存在双重性，在极端情况下病原体丰富度会增加。预测食肉目、长鼻目、偶蹄目和奇蹄目等分类目具有较高的病原体丰富度。我们的集成模型预测的病原体丰富度最高的前三种物种是狼、猪和驼鹿。我们的结果可以帮助支持基于证据的病原体监测和疾病储主管理，以预防未来人畜共患病的出现。
