Landscape changes elevate the risk of avian influenza virus diversification and emergence in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Yin, Shenglai; Zhang, Chenchen; Teitelbaum, Claire S.; Si, Yali; Zhang, Geli; Wang, Xinxin; Mao, Dehua; Huang, Zheng Y. X.; de Boer, Willem Frederik; Takekawa, John; Prosser, Diann J.; Xiao, Xiangming
• 署名单位: University of Oklahoma System; University of Oklahoma - Norman; United States Department of the Interior; United States Geological Survey; University System of Georgia; University of Georgia; United States Department of the Interior; United States Geological Survey; Leiden University - Excl LUMC; Leiden University; China Agricultural University; Fudan University; Chinese Academy of Sciences; Northeast Institute of Geography & Agroecology, CAS; Nanjing Forestry University; Wageningen University & Research
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-13107
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2503427122
• 发表日期: 2025-08-26
• 关键词: bird migration; environmental transmission; waterfowl; outbreaks; patterns; network; populations; spillover; EVOLUTION; CHINA

摘要

Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIV) persistently threaten wild waterfowl, domestic poultry, and public health. The East Asian-Australasian Flyway plays a crucial role in HPAIV dynamics due to its large populations of migratory waterfowl and poultry. Over recent decades, this flyway has undergone substantial landscape changes, including both losses and gains of waterfowl habitats. These changes can affect waterfowl distributions, increase contact with poultry, and consequently alter ecological conditions that favor avian influenza virus (AIV) evolution. However, limited research has assessed these likely impacts. Here, we integrated empirical data and an individual-based model to simulate AIV transmission in migratory waterfowl and domestic poultry, including wild-to-poultry spillover and reassortment dynamics in poultry, across landscapes representing the years 2000 and 2015. We used the reassortment incidence as a proxy for ecological and transmission conditions that support viral diversification and the emergence of novel subtypes. Our simulations show that landscape change reshaped the waterfowl distribution, facilitated bird aggregation at improved habitats, increased coinfection, and raised reassortment rate by 1,593%, indicating a substantially higher potential for viral diversification and emergence. Model-generated risk maps show expanded and increased reassortment risk in southeastern China, the Yellow River Basin, and northeastern China. These findings suggest the importance of landscape change as a driver of potential AIV diversification and subtype emergence. This underscores the need for interdisciplinary approaches that integrate landscape dynamics, host movement, and viral evolution to better assess and mitigate future risk.