Diversification of an emerging pathogen in a biodiversity hotspot: Leptospira in endemic small mammals of Madagascar

Biodiversity hotspots and associated endemism are ideal systems for the study of parasite diversity within host communities. Here, we investigated the ecological and evolutionary forces acting on the diversification of an emerging bacterial pathogen, Leptospira spp., in communities of endemic Malagasy small mammals. We determined the infection rate with pathogenic Leptospira in 23 species of sympatric rodents (subfamily Nesomyinae) and tenrecids (family Tenrecidae) at two eastern humid forest localities. A multilocus genotyping analysis allowed the characterization of bacterial diversity within small mammals and gave insights into their genetic relationships with Leptopsira infecting endemic Malagasy bats (family Miniopteridae and Vespertilionidae). We report for the first time the presence of pathogenic Leptospira in Malagasy endemic small mammals, with an overall prevalence of 13%. In addition, these hosts harbor species of Leptospira (L. kirschneri, L. borgpetersenii and L. borgpeter...

生物多样性热点及其相关特有现象，是研究宿主群落内寄生虫多样性的理想系统。本研究探讨了生态与进化驱动力对马达加斯加特有小型哺乳动物群落中新兴细菌病原体——钩端螺旋体属（Leptospira spp.）多样化的影响。我们测定了马达加斯加东部两个湿润森林地点的23种同域分布啮齿动物（Nesomyinae亚科）和马岛猬科（Tenrecidae科）动物中致病性钩端螺旋体的感染率。多位点基因分型分析揭示了小型哺乳动物体内的细菌多样性特征，并为理解其与感染马达加斯加特有蝙蝠（Miniopteridae科和Vespertilionidae科）的钩端螺旋体之间的遗传关系提供了见解。我们首次报道了马达加斯加特有小型哺乳动物中存在致病性钩端螺旋体，总体感染率为13%。此外，这些宿主携带多种钩端螺旋体（L. kirschneri、L. borgpetersenii及L. borgpeter...