Fast pace of life is associated with host status in small mammals, despite pervasive surveillance bias
- 1Pennsylvania State University
Abstract
Small mammals are the principal hosts of arenaviruses and hantaviruses, yet the determinants of host status remain contested because global surveillance is non-random. We harmonised 729 studies comprising 695,000 diagnostic assays across 637 species and asked whether host status is predictable once surveillance effort is accounted for. Surveillance intensity was predicted by night-time light intensity and accessibility, but not local host richness, and sampling effort was phylogenetically clustered (Pagel's {lambda} = 0.43). Forty-six percent of rodent genera have never been sampled. In Bayesian phylogenetic mixed models of 43,677 host-virus pairs, faster-lived species tended to be detected as hosts more often, though the credible interval included zero (posterior mean = -0.125, 95% CrI [-0.29, 0.04], pd = 93.2%); the estimate was comparable when restricted to active infection. Synanthropy was independently associated with host status, obligate commensals showing approximately twice the odds. Predictions discriminated hosts from non-hosts in withheld continents (AUC 0.81-0.88), scored at observed sampling effort. Host and virus phylogenies were congruent in both families, though most associations departed from strict co-divergence, indicating host-switching alongside co-evolutionary history. Host phylogenetic diversity accumulated without saturating, and arenavirus hosts were discovered in a more phylogenetically clustered order than expected by chance, consistent with surveillance concentrating on relatives of known hosts. Projected globally, community host probability varied largely independently of species richness (R2 = 0.028), so diverse assemblages do not carry systematically elevated host probability. Surveillance bias is substantial and quantifiable, and host biology retains predictive value once it is accounted for.
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BibTeX
@misc{simons2026fast,
title = {{Fast pace of life is associated with host status in small mammals, despite pervasive surveillance bias}},
author = {D. Simons and R. Rivero and G. Rickard and A. Martinez-Checa and H. Gordon and D. W. Redding and S. N. Seifert},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
doi = {10.64898/2026.06.03.729761},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.03.729761v2},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Fast pace of life is associated with host status in small mammals, despite pervasive surveillance bias
AU - D. Simons
AU - R. Rivero
AU - G. Rickard
AU - A. Martinez-Checa
AU - H. Gordon
AU - D. W. Redding
AU - S. N. Seifert
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/03
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.06.03.729761
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.03.729761v2
AB - Small mammals are the principal hosts of arenaviruses and hantaviruses, yet the determinants of host status remain contested because global surveillance is non-random. We harmonised 729 studies comprising 695,000 diagnostic assays across 637 species and asked whether host status is predictable once surveillance effort is accounted for. Surveillance intensity was predicted by night-time light intensity and accessibility, but not local host richness, and sampling effort was phylogenetically clustered (Pagel's {lambda} = 0.43). Forty-six percent of rodent genera have never been sampled. In Bayesian phylogenetic mixed models of 43,677 host-virus pairs, faster-lived species tended to be detected as hosts more often, though the credible interval included zero (posterior mean = -0.125, 95% CrI [-0.29, 0.04], pd = 93.2%); the estimate was comparable when restricted to active infection. Synanthropy was independently associated with host status, obligate commensals showing approximately twice the odds. Predictions discriminated hosts from non-hosts in withheld continents (AUC 0.81-0.88), scored at observed sampling effort. Host and virus phylogenies were congruent in both families, though most associations departed from strict co-divergence, indicating host-switching alongside co-evolutionary history. Host phylogenetic diversity accumulated without saturating, and arenavirus hosts were discovered in a more phylogenetically clustered order than expected by chance, consistent with surveillance concentrating on relatives of known hosts. Projected globally, community host probability varied largely independently of species richness (R2 = 0.028), so diverse assemblages do not carry systematically elevated host probability. Surveillance bias is substantial and quantifiable, and host biology retains predictive value once it is accounted for.
ER -