Zhang Chen, Gu Hao, Peng Jie, He Biao, Liu Yuhang, Yan Xiaomin, Feng Jiang, Liu Ying
Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Resource Conservation and Utilization, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China.
Key Laboratory of Jilin Province for Zoonosis Prevention and Control, Institute of Military Veterinary, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Changchun, Jilin Province, China.
Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2025 Jun;207:108343. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2025.108343. Epub 2025 Mar 25.
Since the emergence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002, bats have been recognized as important reservoirs of diverse coronaviruses (CoVs). Despite extensive research on the broad geographic transmission of bat CoVs, there is a notable gap in understanding the transmission dynamics within sympatric bat communities. Using a phylogeographic Bayesian statistical framework, we examined CoV transmission patterns and their determinants in a region where four bat roosting caves coexist and CoVs circulate persistently. Our findings reveal that two subgenera of CoVs, α-CoVs and β-CoVs dominate different bat caves at varying times. Notably, β-CoVs show more frequent cross-species transmission events among the dominant reservoir hosts, bats of Rhinolophidae. Phylogenetic distance between host species emerges as the key influence factor of viral cross-species transmission, whereas cohabitation duration and the number of hosts sharing caves do not significantly influence viral transmission. In addition, we emphasize that the compositional similarity of species in the roosting caves is critical for the inter-cave transmission of bat-CoVs, rather than the distance between cave. These results provide novel insights into the complex transmission dynamics of bat CoVs within sympatric bat communities.
自2002年严重急性呼吸综合征（SARS）出现以来，蝙蝠一直被认为是多种冠状病毒（CoV）的重要宿主。尽管对蝙蝠冠状病毒的广泛地理传播进行了大量研究，但在理解同域蝙蝠群落内的传播动态方面仍存在显著差距。我们使用系统发育地理贝叶斯统计框架，在一个有四个蝙蝠栖息洞穴共存且冠状病毒持续传播的地区，研究了冠状病毒的传播模式及其决定因素。我们的研究结果表明，冠状病毒的两个亚属，α冠状病毒和β冠状病毒在不同时间主导不同的蝙蝠洞穴。值得注意的是，β冠状病毒在主要宿主菊头蝠科蝙蝠之间表现出更频繁的跨物种传播事件。宿主物种之间的系统发育距离成为病毒跨物种传播的关键影响因素，而同居持续时间和共享洞穴的宿主数量对病毒传播没有显著影响。此外，我们强调栖息洞穴中物种的组成相似性对于蝙蝠冠状病毒的洞穴间传播至关重要，而不是洞穴之间的距离。这些结果为同域蝙蝠群落内蝙蝠冠状病毒的复杂传播动态提供了新的见解。
