Separating history from natural selection during the co-evolution of hantaviruses and their rodent hosts in Europe.

Hantaviruses and their rodent/insectivore hosts are often taken as textbook examples of parasite-host co-evolution. But after closer scrutiny, this relationship is actually not that straightforward: the genetic variation within hantavirus lineages shows topological patterns that are considerably different from those of the hosts. In Europe this could possibly be related to the recolonization pattern since the last ice age, but the reasons behind this pattern remain to be elucidated.The purpose of our study would be to try to unravel the evolutionary drivers (e.g. local adaptation and exctinction, co-speciation, host-switching,..) and their relative roles in shaping the current geographic and allelic distribution of the European hantaviruses and their hosts. The work will be done in close co-operation with several specialized research groups (a.o. the Center of Biology and Management of Populations in Montpellier), utilizing state-of-the-art methods in molecular evolutionary genetics.

Keywords:EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY

Disciplines:Animal biology, Microbiology, Veterinary medicine

Project type:Collaboration project