Bat Distribution Size or Shape as Determinant of Viral Richness in African Bats

Maganga, Gaël D.; Bourgarel, Mathieu; Vallo, Peter; Dallo, Thierno D.; Ngoagouni, Carine; Drexler, Jan Felix; Drosten, Christian; Nakouné, Emmanuel R.; Leroy, Eric M.; Morand, Serge

Using information on bat phylogeny described above, we calculated the independent contrasts for each of the investigated variables with the package APE [39] implemented in R (R Development Core Team 2013). To confirm the proper standardization of contrasts, we regressed the absolute values of standardized contrasts against their standard deviations. Contrasts were then analysed using standard multiple regressions, with all intercepts forced through the origin [40] . We tested the importance of the phylogenetic signal on each variable using the parameter K (which is the ratio of observed phylogenetic covariance divided by the expected covariance under Brownian motion), with the package picante [41] implemented in R (R Development Core Team 2013).