Journal
AMBIO
Volume 51, Issue 3, Pages 508-517Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s13280-021-01594-y
Keywords
Climate change; Myodes glareolus; North; Puumala orthohantavirus; Winter; Zoonosis
Categories
Funding
- Swedish Research Council Formas [2017-00578, 2017-00867]
- Olle och Signhild Engkvists foundation
- Swedish Environmental Protection Agency via the Monitoring Program of Small Rodents
- Swedish Environmental Specimen Bank
- Formas [2017-00867, 2017-00578] Funding Source: Formas
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This study uses long-term monitoring data from Northern Europe to show that climate change has an impact on the transmission of a zoonotic pathogen, increasing the risk of zoonotic diseases in the North.
Many zoonotic diseases are weather sensitive, raising concern how their distribution and outbreaks will be affected by climate change. At northern high latitudes, the effect of global warming on especially winter conditions is strong. By using long term monitoring data (1980-1986 and 2003-2013) from Northern Europe on temperature, precipitation, an endemic zoonotic pathogen (Puumala orthohantavirus, PUUV) and its reservoir host (the bank vole, Myodes glareolus), we show that early winters have become increasingly wet, with a knock-on effect on pathogen transmission in its reservoir host population. Further, our study is the first to show a climate change effect on an endemic northern zoonosis, that is not induced by increased host abundance or distribution, demonstrating that climate change can also alter transmission intensity within host populations. Our results suggest that rainy early winters accelerate PUUV transmission in bank voles in winter, likely increasing the human zoonotic risk in the North.
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