Cargando…

Mammal virus diversity estimates are unstable due to accelerating discovery effort

Host-virus association data underpin research into the distribution and eco-evolutionary correlates of viral diversity and zoonotic risk across host species. However, current knowledge of the wildlife virome is inherently constrained by historical discovery effort, and there are concerns that the re...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Gibb, Rory, Albery, Gregory F., Mollentze, Nardus, Eskew, Evan A., Brierley, Liam, Ryan, Sadie J., Seifert, Stephanie N., Carlson, Colin J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8727147/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34982955
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0427
_version_ 1784626454257991680
author Gibb, Rory
Albery, Gregory F.
Mollentze, Nardus
Eskew, Evan A.
Brierley, Liam
Ryan, Sadie J.
Seifert, Stephanie N.
Carlson, Colin J.
author_facet Gibb, Rory
Albery, Gregory F.
Mollentze, Nardus
Eskew, Evan A.
Brierley, Liam
Ryan, Sadie J.
Seifert, Stephanie N.
Carlson, Colin J.
author_sort Gibb, Rory
collection PubMed
description Host-virus association data underpin research into the distribution and eco-evolutionary correlates of viral diversity and zoonotic risk across host species. However, current knowledge of the wildlife virome is inherently constrained by historical discovery effort, and there are concerns that the reliability of ecological inference from host-virus data may be undermined by taxonomic and geographical sampling biases. Here, we evaluate whether current estimates of host-level viral diversity in wild mammals are stable enough to be considered biologically meaningful, by analysing a comprehensive dataset of discovery dates of 6571 unique mammal host-virus associations between 1930 and 2018. We show that virus discovery rates in mammal hosts are either constant or accelerating, with little evidence of declines towards viral richness asymptotes, even in highly sampled hosts. Consequently, inference of relative viral richness across host species has been unstable over time, particularly in bats, where intensified surveillance since the early 2000s caused a rapid rearrangement of species' ranked viral richness. Our results illustrate that comparative inference of host-level virus diversity across mammals is highly sensitive to even short-term changes in sampling effort. We advise caution to avoid overinterpreting patterns in current data, since it is feasible that an analysis conducted today could draw quite different conclusions than one conducted only a decade ago.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8727147
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher The Royal Society
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-87271472022-01-08 Mammal virus diversity estimates are unstable due to accelerating discovery effort Gibb, Rory Albery, Gregory F. Mollentze, Nardus Eskew, Evan A. Brierley, Liam Ryan, Sadie J. Seifert, Stephanie N. Carlson, Colin J. Biol Lett Pathogen Biology Host-virus association data underpin research into the distribution and eco-evolutionary correlates of viral diversity and zoonotic risk across host species. However, current knowledge of the wildlife virome is inherently constrained by historical discovery effort, and there are concerns that the reliability of ecological inference from host-virus data may be undermined by taxonomic and geographical sampling biases. Here, we evaluate whether current estimates of host-level viral diversity in wild mammals are stable enough to be considered biologically meaningful, by analysing a comprehensive dataset of discovery dates of 6571 unique mammal host-virus associations between 1930 and 2018. We show that virus discovery rates in mammal hosts are either constant or accelerating, with little evidence of declines towards viral richness asymptotes, even in highly sampled hosts. Consequently, inference of relative viral richness across host species has been unstable over time, particularly in bats, where intensified surveillance since the early 2000s caused a rapid rearrangement of species' ranked viral richness. Our results illustrate that comparative inference of host-level virus diversity across mammals is highly sensitive to even short-term changes in sampling effort. We advise caution to avoid overinterpreting patterns in current data, since it is feasible that an analysis conducted today could draw quite different conclusions than one conducted only a decade ago. The Royal Society 2022-01-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8727147/ /pubmed/34982955 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0427 Text en © 2022 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Pathogen Biology
Gibb, Rory
Albery, Gregory F.
Mollentze, Nardus
Eskew, Evan A.
Brierley, Liam
Ryan, Sadie J.
Seifert, Stephanie N.
Carlson, Colin J.
Mammal virus diversity estimates are unstable due to accelerating discovery effort
title Mammal virus diversity estimates are unstable due to accelerating discovery effort
title_full Mammal virus diversity estimates are unstable due to accelerating discovery effort
title_fullStr Mammal virus diversity estimates are unstable due to accelerating discovery effort
title_full_unstemmed Mammal virus diversity estimates are unstable due to accelerating discovery effort
title_short Mammal virus diversity estimates are unstable due to accelerating discovery effort
title_sort mammal virus diversity estimates are unstable due to accelerating discovery effort
topic Pathogen Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8727147/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34982955
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0427
work_keys_str_mv AT gibbrory mammalvirusdiversityestimatesareunstableduetoacceleratingdiscoveryeffort
AT alberygregoryf mammalvirusdiversityestimatesareunstableduetoacceleratingdiscoveryeffort
AT mollentzenardus mammalvirusdiversityestimatesareunstableduetoacceleratingdiscoveryeffort
AT eskewevana mammalvirusdiversityestimatesareunstableduetoacceleratingdiscoveryeffort
AT brierleyliam mammalvirusdiversityestimatesareunstableduetoacceleratingdiscoveryeffort
AT ryansadiej mammalvirusdiversityestimatesareunstableduetoacceleratingdiscoveryeffort
AT seifertstephanien mammalvirusdiversityestimatesareunstableduetoacceleratingdiscoveryeffort
AT carlsoncolinj mammalvirusdiversityestimatesareunstableduetoacceleratingdiscoveryeffort