Bats and COVID-19: villains or victims?

Pereira, María João Ramos; Bernard, Enrico; Aguiar, Ludmilla M. S.

doi:10.1590/1676-0611-bn-2020-1055

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 28 publications

(29 reference statements)

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“…Each species has an ecological role in nature that must be respected. For example, although bats host a variety of pathogens, these animals provide key ecosystem services, such as pollination, pest control, seed dispersal, and are involved in several other ecological aspects (Mickleburgh et al, 2002;Olival, 2016;Pereira et al, 2020). The popular prejudice against bats is very worrying because many species of bats are at risk of extinction (Mickleburgh et al, 2002).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Zoonotic spillover: Understanding basic aspects for better prevention

Ellwanger

Chies

2021

Genet. Mol. Biol.

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The transmission of pathogens from wild animals to humans is called "zoonotic spillover" . Most human infectious diseases (60-75%) are derived from pathogens that originally circulated in non-human animal species. This demonstrates that spillover has a fundamental role in the emergence of new human infectious diseases. Understanding the factors that facilitate the transmission of pathogens from wild animals to humans is essential to establish strategies focused on the reduction of the frequency of spillover events. In this context, this article describes the basic aspects of zoonotic spillover and the main factors involved in spillover events, considering the role of the inter-species interactions, phylogenetic distance between host species, environmental drivers, and specific characteristics of the pathogens, animals, and humans. As an example, the factors involved in the emergence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic are discussed, indicating what can be learned from this public health emergency, and what can be applied to the Brazilian scenario. Finally, this article discusses actions to prevent or reduce the frequency of zoonotic spillover events.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Zoonotic spillover: Understanding basic aspects for better prevention

Ellwanger

Chies

2021

Genet. Mol. Biol.

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“…Bats have been historically stigmatized for their appearance or associated negatively with blood-feeding and rabies, and consequently victimized, mistreated and often killed [25,26]. Since the first news about SARS-CoV-2 pandemic came out, bats have been blamed for the disease current outbreak although no consensus has been reached on significant evidence that would justify such responsibility [27][28][29]. Concurring and more strongly backed up proposals put pangolins (Manis javanica Desmarest, 1822) as a potential intermediate species for the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 (e.g., [27,30]).…”

Section: Ntroductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Amid the rush to hold some animal group responsible for COVID-19 pandemic, the aversion to bats took a further dimension in the public opinion worldwide [29,31,32], which is completely unjustified in the light of what this animal group represents in terms of ecosystem services provided (e.g., environmental restoration through pollination, seed dispersal, and natural pest control) and also diverts the attention they should been given from the conservational point of view [33,34]. As recently alerted by Fenton et al [31], the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List [35] put 77 species of bats under the Endangered category.…”

Section: Ntroductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Equally serious is the Brazilian report on the assessment of threatened species that categorized six species of bats as Vulnerable, one Endangered, and 42 as Data Deficient [2,36], whereas a Paraná state report listed 14 species of bats in the Vulnerable category, two in Endangered, and other 17 in Data Deficient [37]. Today, the bat specialists have concerned [29] that all the speculation about bats being the source of Covid-19 could drive people, or public authorities, to exterminate them. The concern is not to be disregarded at all; for example, after 2004 SARS outbreak, civets (a group of small feliform carnivores) were killed en masse [38].…”

Section: Ntroductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this respect, we present here a synthesis of all the data we collected from museum records and scientific literature on the chiropterans in the city of Curitiba. In addition, we bring forward a proposal to discuss ecological and public health aspects related to the species and/or genera in the city of Curitiba which also outlines a more comprehensive view of the ecological roles played by bats in urban ecosystems to object the general idea formed during the critical times we live in that these animals are the villains of COVID-19 pandemic [21,29].…”

Section: Ntroductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Assessment on Bat Diversity in Curitiba, Paraná State, Subtropical Brazil

Bianconi¹,

Miretzki

2021

Braz. arch. biol. technol.

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Urbanization changes natural environments making them inhospitable to autochthonous fauna. However, studies have shown that certain groups and animal species tolerate urban habitat or even benefit from it as is the case of some bats. This study assesses the diversity of bats in Curitiba, Southern Brazil, providing a basis for the discussion on their conservation, management, ecological services provide, and the critical evaluation of their role in the zoonoses of interest for public health. The data was compiled from a combination of museum, historical and recent literature (1824 to 2020), records to identify which bat species have actually been captured or recorded in Curitiba. The results indicate 29 species (five of them threatened with extinction) from four families: Phyllostomidae, Noctilionidae, Molossidae and Vespertilionidae. Insectivorous bats (Molossidae and Vespertilionidae) represent 62.1% of the species recorded; and the primarily frugivorous (Phyllostomidae) 24.1%, followed by nectarivorous/polinivorous species (6.9%), insectivorous/frugivorous (ca. 3.4%) and piscivorous/insectivorous (ca. 3.4%). Fruit-eating bats seem to prefer urban green areas while insectivores tend to occupy human-made structures. Our results show that this high-growth potential diversity bears both a numerical and ecological relevance. It is worth remembering that Curitiba is in Brazil's subtropical area, where the richness of bat species is lower, and the predominant species are different from those in the tropical region of the country. Finally, studies on the natural history of bats (feeding, reproduction, roosting, etc.) in Curitiba are scarce and urgently necessary given to the current pandemic scenario where these traditionally stigmatized animals have been even more depreciated by public opinion. HIGHLIGHTS 29 species (five of them threatened with extinction) in 17 genera and four families. Insectivorous bats represent 62.1% of the species recorded. Frugivorous bats (Phyllostomidae) represent 24.1% of the species recorded. This high-growth potential diversity bears both a numerical and ecological relevance. Bianconi, GV and Miretzki, M.

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Why was this cited? Explainable machine learning applied to COVID-19 research literature

et al. 2022

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Multiple studies have investigated bibliometric factors predictive of the citation count a research article will receive. In this article, we go beyond bibliometric data by using a range of machine learning techniques to find patterns predictive of citation count using both article content and available metadata. As the input collection, we use the CORD-19 corpus containing research articles—mostly from biology and medicine—applicable to the COVID-19 crisis. Our study employs a combination of state-of-the-art machine learning techniques for text understanding, including embeddings-based language model BERT, several systems for detection and semantic expansion of entities: ConceptNet, Pubtator and ScispaCy. To interpret the resulting models, we use several explanation algorithms: random forest feature importance, LIME, and Shapley values. We compare the performance and comprehensibility of models obtained by “black-box” machine learning algorithms (neural networks and random forests) with models built with rule learning (CORELS, CBA), which are intrinsically explainable. Multiple rules were discovered, which referred to biomedical entities of potential interest. Of the rules with the highest lift measure, several rules pointed to dipeptidyl peptidase4 (DPP4), a known MERS-CoV receptor and a critical determinant of camel to human transmission of the camel coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Some other interesting patterns related to the type of animal investigated were found. Articles referring to bats and camels tend to draw citations, while articles referring to most other animal species related to coronavirus are lowly cited. Bat coronavirus is the only other virus from a non-human species in the betaB clade along with the SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 viruses. MERS-CoV is in a sister betaC clade, also close to human SARS coronaviruses. Thus both species linked to high citation counts harbor coronaviruses which are more phylogenetically similar to human SARS viruses. On the other hand, feline (FIPV, FCOV) and canine coronaviruses (CCOV) are in the alpha coronavirus clade and more distant from the betaB clade with human SARS viruses. Other results include detection of apparent citation bias favouring authors with western sounding names. Equal performance of TF-IDF weights and binary word incidence matrix was observed, with the latter resulting in better interpretability. The best predictive performance was obtained with a “black-box” method—neural network. The rule-based models led to most insights, especially when coupled with text representation using semantic entity detection methods. Follow-up work should focus on the analysis of citation patterns in the context of phylogenetic trees, as well on patterns referring to DPP4, which is currently considered as a SARS-Cov-2 therapeutic target.

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Bats and COVID-19: villains or victims?

Cited by 6 publications

References 28 publications

Zoonotic spillover: Understanding basic aspects for better prevention

Zoonotic spillover: Understanding basic aspects for better prevention

An Assessment on Bat Diversity in Curitiba, Paraná State, Subtropical Brazil

Why was this cited? Explainable machine learning applied to COVID-19 research literature

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