{"id":27182,"date":"2025-07-22T18:06:57","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T12:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=27182"},"modified":"2025-07-22T18:07:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T12:22:00","slug":"teen-bats-most-likely-to-spread-mutant-coronaviruses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/teen-bats-most-likely-to-spread-mutant-coronaviruses\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Teen\u2019 bats most likely to spread mutant coronaviruses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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CCTV footage of the earthquake<\/em> IMAGE:<\/strong> KyotoU \/ Jesse Kearse<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

ITHACA, N.Y. \u2013<\/strong> New Cornell University research finds juvenile and subadult bats may be the most likely to spread new coronaviruses to other species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raina Plowright<\/a>, professor in the Department of Public and Ecosystem Health, and colleagues unveiled new insights into the natural dynamics of coronaviruses circulating in wild bats, which are their reservoir hosts, in a new Nature Communications<\/em> paper<\/a>. When young bats are weaned, they\u2019re more prone to viral infections, and more likely to shed those viruses into the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genomic studies have established that most human coronaviruses originated from viruses in bats, including SARS-CoV2, which triggered the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it remained unclear exactly where and when such transmission happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plowright aimed to pin down those details. \u201cPreventing initial spillover events can stop pandemics at their source, saving lives and preventing disruption of the global economy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists conducted a three-year study of five flying fox (also known as \u201cfruit bats\u201d) roosting sites in eastern Australia. They collected fecal samples for viral screening directly from individual bats captured via mist nets, as well as from population-level sampling by collecting bat scat on plastic sheets under the roosts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They applied a novel statistical modeling technique to integrate data from both types of samples. The models enabled the team to determine the drivers of viral shedding from the individual samples, and the population-level samples helped determine overall prevalence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results showed a consistent pattern of viral shedding, with a seasonal peak across multiple strains of viruses within the bat populations. During that peak, young bats had the highest prevalence of infection of both single and multiple strains of coronaviruses and had the most viral shedding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This peak shedding period coincides with the weaning period for juvenile bats, when, without their mothers\u2019 milk, the young bats no longer have maternal antibodies in their system to protect them from new pathogens. Without this protection, the young bats can become co-infected with multiple strains of viruses, which enables recombination and evolution of new strains. \u201cThis represents a high-risk scenario for the emergence of novel viruses,\u201d Plowright said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study strengthens the idea that zoonotic spillover might be more predictable than previously thought. \u201cViral shedding from wildlife reservoir hosts is one of the first steps in the chain of events that can lead to a pandemic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnderstanding the ecological and host-viral drivers of seasonally dynamic infections, co-infections and recombinations, we can begin to build future predictive frameworks for coronavirus emergence \u2013 both in humans and other animals.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Cornell University research finds juvenile and subadult bats may be the most likely to spread new coronaviruses to other species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid19"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage.webp",700,394,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage-200x200.webp",200,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage-675x380.webp",675,380,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage.webp",700,394,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage.webp",700,394,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage.webp",700,394,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage.webp",700,394,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage.webp",700,394,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage.webp",700,394,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage-600x394.webp",600,394,true],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage-600x394.webp",600,394,true],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage.webp",700,394,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage-550x360.webp",550,360,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage-95x65.webp",95,65,true],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage-640x394.webp",640,394,true],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage-96x96.webp",96,96,true],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/CCTV-earthquake-footage-150x84.webp",150,84,true]},"author_info":{"info":["RevoScience"]},"category_info":"COVID19<\/a>","tag_info":"COVID19","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27184,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27182\/revisions\/27184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}