Abstract
The extent to which humans facilitate zoonotic transmission of infectious diseases is unclear. Human encroachment into wildlife habitats as a consequence of expanding urbanization, cropland area and intensive animal farming is hypothesized to favour the emergence of zoonotic diseases. Here we analyse comprehensive, high-resolution datasets on forest cover, cropland distribution, livestock density, human population, human settlements, bat species' distribution and land-use changes in regions populated by Asian horseshoe bats (>28.5 million km2)-the species that most commonly carry severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-related coronaviruses. We identify areas at risk of SARS-related coronavirus outbreaks, showing that areas in China populated by horseshoe bats exhibit higher forest fragmentation and concentrations of livestock and humans than other countries. Our findings indicate that human-livestock-wildlife interactions in China may form hotspots with the potential to increase SARS-related coronavirus transmission from animals to humans.
Highlights
The extent to which humans facilitate zoonotic transmission of infectious diseases is unclear
We performed our local analyses at horseshoe bat locations in China (Fig. 1a and Supplementary Table 1) and within horseshoe bat distributions in both the larger region including South, East and Southeast Asia and in China
In many regions of the world livestock production growth has often led to agricultural expansion, forest destruction and the encroachment of cropland and intensive livestock farms into disturbed wildlife habitat[21]
Summary
The extent to which humans facilitate zoonotic transmission of infectious diseases is unclear. Human encroachment into wildlife habitats as a consequence of expanding urbanization, cropland area and intensive animal farming is hypothesized to favour the emergence of zoonotic diseases. We identify areas at risk of SARS-related coronavirus outbreaks, showing that areas in China populated by horseshoe bats exhibit higher forest fragmentation and concentrations of livestock and humans than other countries. Emerging infectious diseases frequently originate from pathogen spillovers from wildlife to humans[1]; contributing factors include forest fragmentation, habitat destruction, agricultural expansion, concentrated livestock production and human penetration into wildlife habitats[2,3,4,5]. Genomic sequencing of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has shown that the virus is closely related (~96%) to a strain present in horseshoe bats[7], but it is still unclear whether the spillover of SARS-CoV-2 occurred directly from bats to humans or through an intermediate species. SARSr-CoVs in China are most similar to the highly pathogenic human SARS-CoVs7,24
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