Virus coinfection in plants determined by ecological responses to environmental heterogeneity
Community ecology is acknowledged as a relevant causative agent of epidemiological processes of plant viruses and has consequences for coinfection and virus and host evolution. Plant virus coinfection is common, but factors that promote non-random virus interactions above the population-level are unknown. Here, we analyse intrinsic and extrinsic factors in virus-host and virus-virus interactions…
A new study sheds light on the factors that drive coinfection of plant viruses, taking into account ecological responses to environmental variability. Researchers examined intrinsic and extrinsic factors, as well as interactions between generalist viruses with broad host ranges, diverse transmission modes, and varying responses to environmental changes.
In a diverse multi-host-multi-virus system, coinfection among viruses was observed in 1,931 individual plants from 94 species across various plant communities. The findings indicate that over 50% of plants were coinfected by 2-8 viruses. Using Markov and conditional random fields modelling, the study found that a large majority of coinfections were random interactions, consistent with ecological adaptation.
Only a small fraction of coinfections were non-random associations. The results emphasize the importance of common responses to environmental heterogeneity and mode of horizontal transmission as causal agents of coinfection. The study also highlights the significant role of between-host processes, rather than within-host processes, in driving virus coinfection.
This research contributes significantly to the understanding of virus coinfection drivers, virus community ecology, and epidemiology.
Written by urgent.news from bioRxiv's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
