| Institution: | 1. College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China;2. Institute of Applied Ecology, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, Nanjing, China;3. Department of Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA;4. Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands;5. School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China;6. Wetlands International, Ede, The Netherlands
Good Earth Environmental, Arnhem, The Netherlands;7. School of Natural Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia;8. School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei, China;9. College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China;10. Eastern Ecological Science Center, United States Geological Survey, Laurel, Maryland, USA;11. Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China |
| Abstract: | Species functional traits can influence pathogen transmission processes, and consequently affect species' host status, pathogen diversity, and community-level infection risk. We here investigated, for 143 European waterbird species, effects of functional traits on host status and pathogen diversity (subtype richness) for avian influenza virus at species level. We then explored the association between functional diversity and HPAI H5Nx occurrence at the community level for 2016/17 and 2021/22 epidemics in Europe. We found that both host status and subtype richness were shaped by several traits, such as diet guild and dispersal ability, and that the community-weighted means of these traits were also correlated with community-level risk of H5Nx occurrence. Moreover, functional divergence was negatively associated with H5Nx occurrence, indicating that functional diversity can reduce infection risk. Our findings highlight the value of integrating trait-based ecology into the framework of diversity–disease relationship, and provide new insights for HPAI prediction and prevention. |
