Parasite and viral species richness of Southeast Asian bats: Fragmentation of area distribution matters

Gay, Noellie; Olival, Kevin J.; Bumrungsri, Sara; Siriaroonrat, Boripat; Bourgarel, Mathieu; Morand, Serge

We are aware that the results of our comparative study were strongly dependent on the quality of the published literature, and are based purely on correlation analyses. Ordination of residual values of the linear relationship between viral richness and sampling effort has helped prioritization of several species belonging to families Hipposideridae, Vespertilionidae and Pteropodidae for further viral screening (see above). Ordination of the bat distribution shape could be used as a way to target the bat species as source of potential emerging viruses. Among the first ten species that are ordered according to their distribution shape (see Table 1 ) appear bat species of the family Pteropodidae (such as C. sphinx, Pteropus giganteus or R. leschenaultii), H. armiger (Hipposideridae) and some bat species belonging to Vespertilionidae (e.g. Myotis chinensis, R. pearsonii, Eptesicus serotinus). However, much work should be done to confirm that these species should be targeted and to use this kind of comparative analysis as a tool for predicting bat species as potential sources of emerging viral diseases.