Sampling Strategies and Biodiversity of Influenza A Subtypes in Wild Birds

Wild aquatic birds are recognized as the natural reservoir of avian influenza A viruses (AIV), but across high and low pathogenic AIV strains, scientists have yet to rigorously identify most competent hosts for the various subtypes. We examined 11,870 GenBank records to provide a baseline inventory and insight into patterns of global AIV subtype diversity and richness. Further, we conducted an extensive literature review and communicated directly with scientists to accumulate data from 50 non-overlapping studies and over 250,000 birds to assess the status of historic sampling effort. We then built virus subtype sample-based accumulation curves to better estimate sample size targets that capture a specific percentage of virus subtype richness at seven sampling locations. Our study identifies a sampling methodology that will detect an estimated 75% of circulating virus subtypes from a targeted bird population and outlines future surveillance and research priorities that are needed to explore the influence of host and virus biodiversity on emergence and transmission.

野生水禽被公认为甲型禽流感病毒（AIV）的天然储存宿主，但无论是高致病性还是低致病性的AIV毒株，科学界仍未严谨明确各病毒亚型的绝大多数适宜宿主。本研究检索了11870条基因银行（GenBank）记录，以此构建基线名录并解析全球AIV亚型多样性与丰富度的分布模式。此外，通过开展系统性文献综述并直接与科研人员沟通，本研究累计收集了50项无重复研究的数据，涉及样本量超25万只鸟类，以评估历史采样工作的开展现状。随后，本研究构建了病毒亚型样本累积曲线，以更精准地估算7个采样点位下，可覆盖特定比例病毒亚型丰富度的样本量目标。本研究确定了一种可从目标鸟类种群中检测到约75%流行病毒亚型的采样方法，并梳理了未来监测与研究的优先方向，以探究宿主与病毒生物多样性对病毒出现及传播的影响。