Two Decades of Wildlife Pathogen Surveillance: Case Study of Choclo orthohantavirus and Its Wild Reservoir Oligoryzomys costaricensis.

The Costa Rican pygmy rice rat (Oligoryzomys costaricensis) is the primary reservoir of Choclo orthohantavirus (CHOV), the causal agent of hantavirus disease, pulmonary syndrome, and fever in humans in Panama. Since the emergence of CHOV in early 2000, we have systematically sampled and archived rodents from >150 sites across Panama to establish a baseline understanding of the host and virus, producing a permanent archive of holistic specimens that we are now probing in greater detail. We summarize these collections and explore preliminary habitat/virus associations to guide future wildlife surveillance and public health efforts related to CHOV and other zoonotic pathogens. Host sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene form a single monophyletic clade in Panama, despite wide distribution across Panama. Seropositive samples were concentrated in the central region of western Panama, consistent with the ecology of this agricultural commensal and the higher incidence of CHOV in humans in that region. Hantavirus seroprevalence in the pygmy rice rat was >15% overall, with the highest prevalence in agricultural areas (21%) and the lowest prevalence in shrublands (11%). Host-pathogen distribution, transmission dynamics, genomic evolution, and habitat affinities can be derived from the preserved samples, which include frozen tissues, and now provide a foundation for expanded investigations of orthohantaviruses in Panama.

Preserve a Voucher Specimen! The Critical Need for Integrating Natural History Collections in Infectious Disease Studies.

Despite being nearly 10 months into the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic, the definitive animal host for SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), the causal agent of COVID-19, remains unknown. Unfortunately, similar problems exist for other betacoronaviruses, and no vouchered specimens exist to corroborate host species identification for most of these pathogens. This most basic information is critical to the full understanding and mitigation of emerging zoonotic diseases. To overcome this hurdle, we recommend that host-pathogen researchers adopt vouchering practices and collaborate with natural history collections to permanently archive microbiological samples and host specimens. Vouchered specimens and associated samples provide both repeatability and extension to host-pathogen studies, and using them mobilizes a large workforce (i.e., biodiversity scientists) to assist in pandemic preparedness. We review several well-known examples that successfully integrate host-pathogen research with natural history collections (e.g., yellow fever, hantaviruses, helminths). However, vouchering remains an underutilized practice in such studies. Using an online survey, we assessed vouchering practices used by microbiologists (e.g., bacteriologists, parasitologists, virologists) in host-pathogen research. A much greater number of respondents permanently archive microbiological samples than archive host specimens, and less than half of respondents voucher host specimens from which microbiological samples were lethally collected. To foster collaborations between microbiologists and natural history collections, we provide recommendations for integrating vouchering techniques and archiving of microbiological samples into host-pathogen studies. This integrative approach exemplifies the premise underlying One Health initiatives, providing critical infrastructure for addressing related issues ranging from public health to global climate change and the biodiversity crisis.

Building an integrated infrastructure for exploring biodiversity: field collections and archives of mammals and parasites.

Museum specimens play an increasingly important role in predicting the outcomes and revealing the consequences of anthropogenically driven disruption of the biosphere. As ecological communities respond to ongoing environmental change, host-parasite interactions are also altered. This shifting landscape of host-parasite associations creates opportunities for colonization of different hosts and emergence of new pathogens, with implications for wildlife conservation and management, public health, and other societal concerns. Integrated archives that document and preserve mammal specimens along with their communities of associated parasites and ancillary data provide a powerful resource for investigating, anticipating, and mitigating the epidemiological, ecological, and evolutionary impacts of environmental perturbation. Mammalogists who collect and archive mammal specimens have a unique opportunity to expand the scope and impact of their field work by collecting the parasites that are associated with their study organisms. We encourage mammalogists to embrace an integrated and holistic sampling paradigm and advocate for this to become standard practice for museum-based collecting. To this end, we provide a detailed, field-tested protocol to give mammalogists the tools to collect and preserve host and parasite materials that are of high quality and suitable for a range of potential downstream analyses (e.g., genetic, morphological). Finally, we also encourage increased global cooperation across taxonomic disciplines to build an integrated series of baselines and snapshots of the changing biosphere. Los especímenes de museo desempeñan un papel cada vez más importante tanto en la descripción de los resultados de la alteración antropogénica de la biosfera como en la predicción de sus consecuencias. Dado que las comunidades ecológicas responden al cambio ambiental, también se alteran las interacciones hospedador-parásito. Este panorama cambiante de asociaciones hospedador-parásito crea oportunidades para la colonización de diferentes hospedadores y para la aparición de nuevos patógenos, con implicancias en la conservación y manejo de la vida silvestre, la salud pública y otras preocupaciones de importancia para la sociedad. Archivos integrados que documentan y preservan especímenes de mamíferos junto con sus comunidades de parásitos y datos asociados, proporcionan un fuerte recurso para investigar, anticipar y mitigar los impactos epidemiológicos, ecológicos y evolutivos de las perturbaciones ambientales. Los mastozoólogos que recolectan y archivan muestras de mamíferos, tienen una oportunidad única de ampliar el alcance e impacto de su trabajo de campo mediante la recolección de los parásitos que están asociados con los organismos que estudian. Alentamos a los mastozoólogos a adoptar un paradigma de muestreo integrado y holístico y abogamos para que esto se convierta en una práctica estándarizada de la obtención de muestras para museos. Con este objetivo, proporcionamos un protocolo detallado y probado en el campo para brindar a los mastozoólogos las herramientas para recolectar y preservar materiales de parásitos y hospedadores de alta calidad y adecuados para una gran variedad de análisis subsecuentes (e.g., genéticos, morfológicos, etc.). Finalmente, también abogamos por una mayor cooperación global entre las diversas disciplinas taxonómicas para construir una serie integrada de líneas de base y registros actuales de nuestra cambiante biosfera.