Some diseases which are fatal in one species can cause only mild discomfort in another—but it’s hard for scientists to predict how lethal a disease will be if it leaps across species.
Some diseases which are fatal in one species can cause only mild discomfort in another—but it’s hard for scientists to predict how lethal a disease will be if it leaps across species.
However, a new paper published this week in PNAS indicates that the evolutionary relationship between infected hosts can predict the impact of diseases.
Canadian researchers used data from the World Organisation for Animal Health to track diseases in domesticated mammals, tracing their paths and outcomes across the world. “The bigger the evolutionary jump between species, the more likely the disease could be lethal in its new host.”
“The bigger the evolutionary jump between species, the more likely the disease could be lethal in its new host,” says Jonathan Davies, a UBC biologist and senior researcher on the paper.
Read more at McGill University
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
