In the study, scientists conducted a first comprehensive study of how Climate change will reorganize the virome of mammals worldwide. The work focuses on changing the scope of the landscape – the journey that animals will take as they follow their habitats to new habitats. As they encounter other mammals for the first time, research projects will share thousands of viruses.
They say that these mutations present a greater possibility for viruses such as Ebola or coronaviruses to invade new habitats, making it difficult to track new species, making it easier for germs to jump on a “stepping stone” into humans.
“The closest analogy is actually the risks we see in wildlife trade,” said lead author of the study Colin Carlson, PhD, assistant professor of research at the Center for Global Health Sciences and Safety at Georgetown University Medical Center. “We are concerned about markets because merging unhealthy animals into exotic animals creates opportunities for this process to emerge gradually – such as how SARS jumps from bats to civets, and then to humans. But markets are no longer important; all over.”
Worryingly, wildlife habitats will move differently from human habitats, creating new more dangerous habitats. It is likely that much of this process is already under way in today’s global warming of 1.2 degrees, and efforts to reduce emissions may not prevent these events from happening.
Rising impact of temperatures
Also important findings are the rising impact of temperatures on bats, which in turn causes most of the novel to share the virus. Their ability to fly will allow them to travel long distances, and to share in many viruses. Because of their vital role in the transmission of the virus, major effects are being observed in Southeast Asia, the world’s most diverse bat species.
“In every step,” said Carlson, “our impressions are amazing. We have spent years examining those results twice, with different data and different assumptions, but models always lead us to these conclusions. It’s really amazing. jumping among species of animals by an unprecedented number, the authors say the impact on conservation and human health could be staggering.
“This device adds another layer to the fact that climate change will endanger human and animal health,” said study co-author Gregory Albery, PhD, a colleague who became a doctor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Georgetown University College of Arts and Sciences. “It is not yet clear how these new strains can affect the species involved, but it is likely that many of them will be translated into new conservation risks and exacerbate the human novel outbreak.”
Overall, the study suggests that climate change will be a major cause of the risk of disease outbreaks – beyond major issues such as deforestation, wildlife trade, and industrial agriculture. The authors claim that the solution is to combine the observations of wildlife diseases with real-time evolutionary studies.
When the free Brazilian bat arrives in Appalachia, we have to invest in knowing what viruses are associated with it, “said Carlson. “” We are closer to predicting and preventing the next epidemic than ever before, “said Carlson. in the difficult part of the problem. “
COVID-19outbreaks
“The COVID-19 epidemic, and the previous outbreaks of SARS, Ebola, and Zika, show how far-reaching the effects of animal-to-human transmission can be,” said Sam Scheiner, program director of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). research. “This study shows how animal movements and interactions due to the hot climate can increase the number of germs that jump between species of animals.”
The study described in part is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Biology Integration Institutes (BII) grant (BII 2021909), Viral Emergence Research Initiative (Verena). Verena, co-founded by Carlson and Albery, manages the largest open data ecosystem in viral ecology, and develops tools to help predict which viruses can infect humans, which animals are infected, and where they may one day emerge.
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