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. 2008 Jul 22;275(1643):1695-701.
doi: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0284.

Phylogeny and geography predict pathogen community similarity in wild primates and humans

T Jonathan Davies  1 , Amy B Pedersen
Affiliations

Phylogeny and geography predict pathogen community similarity in wild primates and humans

T Jonathan Davies et al. Proc Biol Sci. .

Abstract

In natural systems, host species are often co-infected by multiple pathogen species, and recent work has suggested that many pathogens can infect a wide range of host species. An important question therefore is what determines the host range of a pathogen and the community of pathogens found within a given host species. Using primates as a model, we show that infectious diseases are more often shared between species that are closely related and inhabit the same geographical region. We find that host relatedness is the best overall predictor of whether two host species share the same pathogens. A higher frequency of pathogen host shifts between close relatives or inheritance of pathogens from a common ancestor may explain this result. For viruses, geographical overlap among neighbouring primate hosts is more important in determining host range. We suggest this is because rapid evolution within viral lineages allows host jumps across larger evolutionary distances. We also show that the phylogenetic pattern of pathogen sharing with humans is the same as that between wild primates. For humans, this means we share a higher proportion of pathogens with the great apes, including chimpanzees and gorillas, because these species are our closest relatives.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Relationship between divergence time and proportion of shared pathogens. Squares (allopatric host pairs) and circles (sympatric host pairs) represent mean pathogen community similarity (βj; Jaccard 1912) between host pairs in 10 Myr bins; the size of the symbol is proportional to the number of pairwise contrasts within each time interval. This figure is illustrative only and follows the approach of Gilbert & Webb (2007); model fitting was performed using the individual pairwise contrasts (§2).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Variation in explanatory power with pathogen taxonomy and transmission mode. Bar heights represent correlation coefficients (R) from the partial Mantel tests. Divergence time is negatively correlated with pathogen sharing. Black bars, divergence time; grey bars, sympatry.
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