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1. Identifying Suspect Bat Reservoirs of Emerging Infections

   https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines8020228  

   Crowley, Daniel; Becker, Daniel; Washburne, Alex; Plowright, Raina (June 2020, Vaccines)

   Bats host a number of pathogens that cause severe disease and onward transmission in humans and domestic animals. Some of these pathogens, including henipaviruses and filoviruses, are considered a concern for future pandemics. There has been substantial effort to identify these viruses in bats. However, the reservoir hosts for Ebola virus are still unknown and henipaviruses are largely uncharacterized across their distribution. Identifying reservoir species is critical in understanding the viral ecology within these hosts and the conditions that lead to spillover. We collated surveillance data to identify taxonomic patterns in prevalence and seroprevalence and to assess sampling efforts across species. We systematically collected data on filovirus and henipavirus detections and used a machine-learning algorithm, phylofactorization, in order to search the bat phylogeny for cladistic patterns in filovirus and henipavirus infection, accounting for sampling efforts. Across sampled bat species, evidence for filovirus infection was widely dispersed across the sampled phylogeny. We found major gaps in filovirus sampling in bats, especially in Western Hemisphere species. Evidence for henipavirus infection was clustered within the Pteropodidae; however, no other clades have been as intensely sampled. The major predictor of filovirus and henipavirus exposure or infection was sampling effort. Based on these results, we recommend expanding surveillance for these pathogens across the bat phylogenetic tree. 

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2. Expanding the bat toolbox: Carollia perspicillata bat cell lines and reagents enable the characterization of viral susceptibility and innate immune responses

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003098  

   Gonzalez, Victoria; Word, Cierra; Guerra-Pilaquinga, Nahomi; Mazinani, Mitra; Fawcett, Stephen; Portfors, Christine; Falzarano, Darryl; Kell, Alison M; Jangra, Rohit K; Banerjee, Arinjay; et al (April 2025, PLOS Biology)

   Kedzierska, Katherine (Ed.)

   Multiple viruses that are highly pathogenic in humans are known to have evolved in bats. How bats tolerate infection with these viruses, however, is poorly understood. As viruses engage in a wide range of interactions with their hosts, it is essential to study bat viruses in a system that resembles their natural environment like bat-derived in vitro cellular models. However, stable and accessible bat cell lines are not widely available for the broader scientific community. Here, we generated in vitro reagents for the Seba’s short-tailed bat (Carollia perspicillata), tested multiple methods of immortalization, and characterized their susceptibility to virus infection and response to immune stimulation. Using pseudotyped virus library and authentic virus infections, we show that theseC. perspicillatacell lines derived from a diverse array of tissues are susceptible to viruses bearing the glycoprotein of numerous orthohantaviruses, including Andes and Hantaan virus and are also susceptible to live hantavirus infection. Furthermore, stimulation with synthetic double-stranded RNA prior to infection with vesicular stomatitis virus and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome coronavirus induced a protective antiviral response, demonstrating the suitability of our cell lines to study the bat antiviral immune response. Taken together, the approaches outlined here will inform future efforts to develop in vitro tools for virology from non-model organisms and theseC. perspicillatacell lines will enable studies on virus–host interactions in these bats. 

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3. Changing resource landscapes and spillover of henipaviruses: Resource landscapes and henipavirus spillover

   https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13910  

   Kessler, Maureen K.; Becker, Daniel J.; Peel, Alison J.; Justice, Nathan V.; Lunn, Tamika; Crowley, Daniel E.; Jones, Devin N.; Eby, Peggy; Sánchez, Cecilia A.; Plowright, Raina K. (August 2018, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences)

   Old World fruit bats (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae) provide critical pollination and seed dispersal services to forest ecosystems across Africa, Asia, and Australia. In each of these regions, pteropodids have been identified as natural reservoir hosts for henipaviruses. The genus Henipavirus includes Hendra virus and Nipah virus, which regularly spill over from bats to domestic animals and humans in Australia and Asia, and a suite of largely uncharacterized African henipaviruses. Rapid change in fruit bat habitat and associated shifts in their ecology and behavior are well documented, with evidence suggesting that altered diet, roosting habitat, and movement behaviors are increasing spillover risk of bat‐borne viruses. We review the ways that changing resource landscapes affect the processes that culminate in cross‐species transmission of henipaviruses, from reservoir host density and distribution to within‐host immunity and recipient host exposure. We evaluate existing evidence and highlight gaps in knowledge that are limiting our understanding of the ecological drivers of henipavirus spillover. When considering spillover in the context of land‐use change, we emphasize that it is especially important to disentangle the effects of habitat loss and resource provisioning on these processes, and to jointly consider changes in resource abundance, quality, and composition. 

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4. The Ecology of Nipah Virus in Bangladesh: A Nexus of Land-Use Change and Opportunistic Feeding Behavior in Bats

   https://doi.org/10.3390/v13020169  

   McKee, Clifton D.; Islam, Ausraful; Luby, Stephen P.; Salje, Henrik; Hudson, Peter J.; Plowright, Raina K.; Gurley, Emily S. (February 2021, Viruses)

   null (Ed.)

   Nipah virus is a bat-borne paramyxovirus that produces yearly outbreaks of fatal encephalitis in Bangladesh. Understanding the ecological conditions that lead to spillover from bats to humans can assist in designing effective interventions. To investigate the current and historical processes that drive Nipah spillover in Bangladesh, we analyzed the relationship among spillover events and climatic conditions, the spatial distribution and size of Pteropus medius roosts, and patterns of land-use change in Bangladesh over the last 300 years. We found that 53% of annual variation in winter spillovers is explained by winter temperature, which may affect bat behavior, physiology, and human risk behaviors. We infer from changes in forest cover that a progressive shift in bat roosting behavior occurred over hundreds of years, producing the current system where a majority of P. medius populations are small (median of 150 bats), occupy roost sites for 10 years or more, live in areas of high human population density, and opportunistically feed on cultivated food resources—conditions that promote viral spillover. Without interventions, continuing anthropogenic pressure on bat populations similar to what has occurred in Bangladesh could result in more regular spillovers of other bat viruses, including Hendra and Ebola viruses. 

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5. Virus‐Dependent Geographic Structure of Co‐Circulating Viruses in a Single Bat Species

   https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.70295  

   Holmes, Avery L; Broos, Alice; Becker, Daniel J; Carrera, Jorge E; Farrell, Maxwell J; Ribeiro, Rita; Tello, Carlos; Bergner, Laura M; Streicker, Daniel G (March 2026, Molecular Ecology)

   ABSTRACT Understanding the spatial spread of viruses within wildlife populations is often a key component of disease management efforts. Viral spread is likely constrained by host ecology, but inter‐virus differences in infection strategy might allow some viruses to overcome these constraints, leading to divergent population structures within a common host environment. We studied the phylogeographic structure of six virus taxa (dependoparvovirus, deltavirus, mastadenovirus, betaherpesvirus and two lineages of rabies virus) circulating in common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) in Peru, finding that viral population structure is inconsistently constrained by host ecology. Specifically, while bat travel distance structured the genetic diversity of betaherpesvirus and two lineages of rabies virus, other viruses were instead constrained by anthropogenic factors (dependoparvovirus), or had weakly defined population structure (mastadenovirus). The genetic structure of all viruses was affected by a measure of human travel difficulty between sites, but effects varied in size and direction. Distinct drivers of viral population structure within the same host species imply that virus infection strategy can outweigh host ecological connectivity, acting as a key determinant of geographic spread. Because barriers to gene flow generalise poorly between viruses, whether a tractable virus can illuminate host population structure or predict the spread of high‐impact viruses depends on individual virus biology. 

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