Co-divergence between host and parasites suggests that evolutionary processes act across similar spatial and temporal scales. Although there has been considerable work on the extent and correlates of co-divergence of RNA viruses and their mammalian hosts, relatively little is known about the extent to which virus evolution is determined by the phylogeographic history of host species. To test hy...

Sin Nombre virus (SNV) is the principal cause of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in the United States and deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) are its principal rodent host, and thus the natural cycle of the virus is related to the occurrence of HPS. Prevalence of rodent infection appears to be associated with fluctuations in deer mouse populations and, indirectly, with timing and amount of p...

Hantaviruses, similar to several emerging zoonotic viruses, persistently infect their natural reservoir hosts, without causing overt signs of disease. Spillover to incidental human hosts results in morbidity and mortality mediated by excessive proinflammatory and cellular immune responses. The mechanisms mediating the persistence of hantaviruses and the absence of clinical symptoms in rodent re...

We investigated a causal chain of relationships between habitat specialization and parasite species richness in rodent communities in Southeast Asia, and the consequences for variation in immune investment (using spleen size), the degree of sexual competition (using testes) and sexual size dimorphism (SSD). We used data gathered on rodents, their habitat specialization and their parasites (macr...

Small mammals are important reservoirs of multiple pathogens transmittable to humans. Rodent populations highly dynamic, passing through multiannual cycles with densities changing in several orders magnitude. Such variable pools hosts shape the intensity pathogen spread among animals and risks spillover We describe such dynamic system within a sample set 13 small mammal species six potentially ...

Over 1,100 cases of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) have occurred in Brazil since 1993, but little is known about Brazilian hantaviruses, and many of their rodent hosts remain unknown. The Araucaria hantavirus (ARAUV) was described recently from HPS patients from Paraná, in southern Brazil, but its host could not be identified. In this study, rodents were captured from regions with high HPS...

The fluctuations in abundance of a wildlife reservoir are an attractive explanation for temporal variation in primary human cases of a zoonosis. This is because high abundance may lead to more contact between humans and animals, but also to outbreaks of disease within the reservoir population. We propose a mathematical framework that sets out the consequences of correlation between reservoir ab...

Using nested polymerase chain reaction, we sequenced Dobrava virus (DOB) from the rodent Apodemus agrarius in Hungary. The samples we isolated group with DOB samples previously isolated from A. flavicollis. This grouping may indicate host switching.

Abstract Host phylogeny and environments have all been implicated in shaping the gut microbiota host metabolic traits of mammals. However, few studies evaluated phylogeny-associated microbial assembly plasticity concurrently their relationships on both short-term evolutionary timescales. We reported that branching order dendrogram was nearly congruent with phylogenetic 7 rodent species, this pa...