SynthesisPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019
Host phylogenetic distance drives trends in virus virulence and transmissibility across the animal-human interface.
Synthesis in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 89 citations in OpenAlex.
- Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Emerging Viral Zoonotic Diseases, 2016-2026.Transboundary and emerging diseases · 2026Pooled it
- Are novel or locally adapted pathogens more devastating and why? Resolving opposing hypotheses.Ecology letters · 2024Pooled it
- Targeting Zoonotic Spillover Drivers for Global Pandemic Prevention: A Narrative Review.Microorganisms · 2026Review
- Detectable effects of bacterial phylogeny on virulence but not phage efficacy in anISME communications · 2026Article
- Viral epidemic potential is not uniformly distributed across the bat phylogeny.Communications biology · 2025Article
- A Phylogenetic Host-Range Index Reveals Ecological Constraints in Phage Specialisation and Virulence.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Diverse hosts, diverse immune systems: Evolutionary variation in bat immunology.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Pathogens and planetary change.Nature reviews. Biodiversity · 2025Article
- Multispecies interactions and the community context of the evolution of virulence.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- RNAVirHost: a machine learning-based method for predicting hosts of RNA viruses through viral genomes.GigaScience · 2024Article
- Reservoir host immunology and life history shape virulence evolution in zoonotic viruses.PLoS biology · 2023Article
- Predicting the virulence of future emerging zoonotic viruses.PLoS biology · 2023Article
- The host phylogeny determines viral infectivity and replication across Staphylococcus host species.PLoS pathogens · 2023Article
- Investigating the outcomes of virus coinfection within and across host species.PLoS pathogens · 2023Article
- Host-Pathogen Interactions Influencing Zoonotic Spillover Potential and Transmission in Humans.Viruses · 2023Review
- Heterogeneities in infection outcomes across species: sex and tissue differences in virus susceptibility.Peer community journal · 2023Article
- Applications of VirScan to broad serological profiling of bat reservoirs for emerging zoonoses.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Enveloped viruses show increased propensity to cross-species transmission and zoonosis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Reproduction, seasonal morphology, and juvenile growth in three Malagasy fruit bats.Journal of mammalogy · 2022Article
- Developing an empirical model for spillover and emergence: Orsay virus host range inProceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Historically, efforts to assess 'zoonotic risk' have focused mainly on quantifying the potential for cross-species emergence of viruses from animal hosts. However, viruses clearly differ in relative burden, both in terms of morbidity and mortality (virulence) incurred and the capacity for sustained human-to-human transmission. Extending previously published databases, we delineated host and viral traits predictive of human mortality associated with viral spillover, viral capacity to transmit between humans following spillover and the probability of a given virus being zoonotic. We demonstrate that increasing host phylogenetic distance from humans positively correlates with human mortality but negatively correlates with human transmissibility, suggesting that the virulence induced by viruses emerging from hosts at high phylogenetic distance may limit capacity for human transmission. Our key result is that hosts most closely related to humans harbour zoonoses of lower impact in terms of morbidity and mortality, while the most distantly related hosts-in particular, order Chiroptera (bats)-harbour highly virulent zoonoses with a lower capacity for endemic establishment in human hosts. As a whole, our results emphasize the importance of understanding how zoonoses manifest in the human population and also highlight potential risks associated with multi-host transmission chains in spillover. This article is part of the theme issue 'Dynamic and integrative approaches to understanding pathogen spillover'.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.