Distinct spread of DNA and RNA viruses among mammals amid prominent role of domestic species

Wells, Konstans; Morand, Serge; Wardeh, Maya; Baylis, Matthew

AIM: Emerging infectious diseases arising from pathogen spillover from mammals to humans constitute a substantial health threat. Tracing virus origin and predicting the most likely host species for future spillover events are major objectives in One Health disciplines. We assessed patterns of virus sharing among a large diversity of mammals, including humans and domestic species. LOCATION: Global. TIME PERIOD: Current. MAJOR TAXA STUDIED: Mammals and associated viruses. METHODS: We used network centrality analysis and trait‐based Bayesian hierarchical models to explore patterns of virus sharing among mammals. We analysed a global database that compiled the associations between 1,785 virus species and 725 mammalian host species as sourced from automatic screening of meta‐data accompanying published nucleotide sequences between 1950 and 2019. RESULTS: We show that based on current evidence, domesticated mammals hold the most central positions in networks of known mammal–virus associations. Among entire host–virus networks, Carnivora and Chiroptera hold central positions for mainly sharing RNA viruses, whereas ungulates hold central positions for sharing both RNA and DNA viruses with other host species. We revealed strong evidence that DNA viruses were phylogenetically more host specific than RNA viruses. RNA viruses exhibited low functional host specificity despite an overall tendency to infect phylogenetically related species, signifying high potential to shift across hosts with different ecological niches. The frequencies of sharing viruses among hosts and the proportion of zoonotic viruses in hosts were larger for RNA than for DNA viruses. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: Acknowledging the role of domestic species in addition to host and virus traits in patterns of virus sharing is necessary to improve our understanding of virus spread and spillover in times of global change. Understanding multi‐host virus‐sharing pathways adds focus to curtail disease spread.