Faecal virome of red foxes from peri-urban areas

Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) are the most abundant carnivore species in the Northern Hemisphere. Since their populations are well established in peri-urban and urban areas, they represent a potential reservoir of viruses that transmit from wildlife to humans or domestic animals. In this study, we evaluated the faecal virome of juvenile and adult foxes from peri-urban areas in central Croatia. The dominating mammalian viruses were fox picobirnavirus and parvovirus. The highest number of viral reads (N = 1412) was attributed to a new fox circovirus and complete viral genome was de novo assembled from the high-throughput sequencing data. Fox circovirus is highly similar to dog circoviruses identified in diseased dogs in USA and Italy, and to a recently discovered circovirus of foxes with neurologic disease from the United Kingdom. Our fox picobirnavirus was more closely related to the porcine and human picobirnaviruses than to known fox picobirnaviruses.