Journal article
Ecology and environment predict spatially stratified risk of H5 highly pathogenic avian influenza clade 2.3.4.4b in wild birds across Europe
- Abstract:
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Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) represents a threat to animal and human health, with the ongoing H5N1 outbreak within the H5 2.3.4.4b clade being one of the largest on record. However, it remains unclear what factors have contributed to its intercontinental spread. We use Bayesian additive regression trees, a machine learning method designed for probabilistic modelling of complex nonlinear phenomena, to construct species distribution models (SDMs) for HPAI clade 2.3.4.4b presence. We identify factors driving geospatial patterns of infection and project risk distributions across Europe. Our models are time-stratified to capture both seasonal changes in risk and shifts in epidemiology associated with the succession of H5N6/H5N8 by H5N1 within the clade. While previous studies aimed to model HPAI presence from physical geography, we explicitly consider wild bird ecology by including estimates of bird species richness, abundance of specific taxa, and “abundance indices” describing total abundance of birds with high-risk behavioural traits. Our projections of HPAI clade 2.3.4.4b indicate a shift in persistent, year-round risk towards cold, low-lying regions of northwest Europe associated with H5N1. Methodologically, we demonstrate that while most variation in risk can be explained by climate and physical geography, adding host ecology is a valuable refinement to SDMs of HPAI.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 3.3MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41598-025-30651-9
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- Scientific Reports More from this journal
- Volume:
- 16
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- 997
- Publication date:
- 2025-12-02
- Acceptance date:
- 2025-11-26
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2045-2322
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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2335738
- Local pid:
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pubs:2335738
- Deposit date:
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2025-11-26
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Hayes et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2025, The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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