Viral maintenance and excretion dynamics of coronaviruses within an Egyptian rousette fruit bat maternal colony: considerations for spillover

Abstract

Novel coronavirus species of public health and veterinary importance have emerged in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, with bats identified as natural hosts for progenitors of many coronaviruses. Targeted wildlife surveillance is needed to identify the factors involved in viral perpetuation within natural host populations, and drivers of interspecies transmission. We monitored a natural colony of Egyptian rousette bats at monthly intervals across two years to identify circulating coronaviruses, and to investigate shedding dynamics and viral maintenance within the colony. Three distinct lineages were detected, with different seasonal temporal excretion dynamics. For two lineages, the highest periods of coronavirus shedding were at the start of the year, when large numbers of bats were found in the colony. Highest peaks for a third lineage were observed towards the middle of the year. Among individual bat-level factors (age, sex, reproductive status, and forearm mass index), only reproductive status showed significant effects on excretion probability, with reproductive adults having lower rates of detection, though factors were highly interdependent. Analysis of recaptured bats suggests that viral clearance may occur within one month. These findings may be implemented in the development of risk reduction strategies for potential zoonotic coronavirus transmission.

Advances in understanding bat infection dynamics across biological scales

“…These microbes may or may not cause disease in bats, and thus we broadly use the term 'microbes' rather than 'pathogens' throughout this paper to acknowledge that detecting microorganisms in bats is distinct from the process of determining pathogenicity [6]. Research has moved far beyond simple microbe detection in bat hosts and includes cutting-edge investigations into infection dynamics at individual, population and community scales, and One Health approaches to integrate bat ecology and health [7][8][9][10][11].…”

Role of individual and population heterogeneity in shaping dynamics of multi-pathogen excretion in an island endemic bat

“…However, most of the previous longitudinal studies on bats have focused on a single infectious agent, or different variants within the same viral family (e.g. [19][20][21][22]. Thus, our knowledge on spatio-temporal co-infection dynamics with different groups of infectious agents (DNA/RNA viruses, bacteria, fungi) remains limited (23)(24)(25).…”