Ebolavirus evolution and emergence are associated with land use change.

ABSTRACT: Anthropogenic land use change facilitates disease emergence by altering the interface between humans and pathogen reservoirs and is hypothesized to drive pathogen evolution. Here, we show a positive association between land use change and the evolution and dispersal of Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) and Sudan ebolavirus (SUDV). We update the phylogeographies of EBOV and SUDV, which reveal that the most recent common ancestor of EBOV was circulating around 1960 in the forests of what is now the northwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo, while the most recent common ancestor of SUDV was circulating around 1958 in the southern Sudanese savanna. Both landscapes underwent significant anthropogenic fragmentation between 1940 and 1960, associated with specific colonial "schemes," which

SUBMITTER: Lange CE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12180927 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature