In this new paper, our team has shown that the global wildlife trade increases animal-to-human pathogen transmission. Congrats to Jérome, Tristan and Mattéo, and of course our collaborators!
Read it here.
Summary: The wildlife trade affects a quarter of terrestrial vertebrates and creates opportunities for cross-species pathogen transmission, but its precise role in shaping animal-human pathogen exchange remains unclear. In our analysis of 40 years of global wildlife trade data, we show that traded mammals are 1.5-fold as likely to share pathogens with humans as nontraded mammals, and that illegal and live-animal trade further exacerbate pathogen sharing. Time spent in trade predicts the number of zoonotic pathogens that a wildlife species hosts. On average, a species shares an additional pathogen with humans for every 10 years it is traded.
Here some media posts about this paper:
UNIL, New York Times, Washington Post, Scientific American, Interesting Engineering,