Ineos Oxford Institute, Department of Biology, University of Oxford, 11a Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3SZ, UK; Zoonosis Science Centre, Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, Husargatan 3, 751 23 Uppsala, Sweden.
Bird Ecology Lab, Instituto de Ciencias Marinas y Limnológicas, Universidad Austral de Chile, Independencia 631, 5110566 Valdivia, Chile; Centro de Humedales Río Cruces (CEHUM), Universidad Austral de Chile, Camino Cabo Blanco Alto s/n, 5090000 Valdivia, Chile; HUN-REN-DE Reproductive Strategies Research Group, Department of Evolutionary Zoology and Human Biology, University of Debrecen, Egyetem tér 1, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary; Instituto Milenio Biodiversidad de Ecosistemas Antárticos y Subantárticos (BASE), Las Palmeras 3425, 8320000 Santiago, Chile.
Curr Biol. 2024 Sep 9;34(17):3955-3965.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.07.059. Epub 2024 Aug 13.
Humans are radically altering global ecology, and one of the most apparent human-induced effects is urbanization, where high-density human habitats disrupt long-established ecotones. Changes to these transitional areas between organisms, especially enhanced contact among humans and wild animals, provide new opportunities for the spread of zoonotic pathogens. This poses a serious threat to global public health, but little is known about how habitat disruption impacts cross-species pathogen spread. Here, we investigated variation in the zoonotic enteric pathogen Campylobacter jejuni. The ubiquity of C. jejuni in wild bird gut microbiomes makes it an ideal organism for understanding how host behavior and ecology influence pathogen transition and spread. We analyzed 700 C. jejuni isolate genomes from 30 bird species in eight countries using a scalable generalized linear model approach. Comparing multiple behavioral and ecological traits showed that proximity to human habitation promotes lineage diversity and is associated with antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) strains in natural populations. Specifically, wild birds from urban areas harbored up to three times more C. jejuni genotypes and AMR genes. This study provides novel methodology and much-needed quantitative evidence linking urbanization to gene pool spread and zoonoses.
人类正在从根本上改变全球生态系统，其中最明显的人为影响之一是城市化，高密度的人类栖息地破坏了长期存在的生态交错带。这些生物之间的过渡区域的变化，特别是人类和野生动物之间接触的增加，为人畜共患病原体的传播提供了新的机会。这对全球公共卫生构成了严重威胁，但人们对栖息地破坏如何影响跨物种病原体传播知之甚少。在这里，我们研究了人畜共患肠道病原体空肠弯曲菌的变异情况。空肠弯曲菌在野生鸟类肠道微生物组中的普遍存在使其成为了解宿主行为和生态如何影响病原体转移和传播的理想生物体。我们使用可扩展的广义线性模型方法分析了来自 8 个国家的 30 种鸟类的 700 个空肠弯曲菌分离株基因组。比较多种行为和生态特征表明，靠近人类居住地促进了谱系多样性，并与自然种群中的抗微生物药物耐药（AMR）菌株有关。具体来说，来自城市地区的野生鸟类携带的空肠弯曲菌基因型和 AMR 基因多达三倍。这项研究提供了新的方法和急需的定量证据，将城市化与基因库传播和人畜共患病联系起来。
