No evidence for persistent natural plague reservoirs in historical and modern Europe

Stenseth, N. C. et al. (2022) No evidence for persistent natural plague reservoirs in historical and modern Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119(51), e2209816119. (doi: 10.1073/pnas.2209816119) (PMID:36508668) (PMCID:PMC9907128)

Abstract

Caused by Yersinia pestis, plague ravaged the world through three known pandemics: the First or the Justinianic (6th–8th century); the Second (beginning with the Black Death during c.1338–1353 and lasting until the 19th century); and the Third (which became global in 1894). It is debatable whether Y. pestis persisted in European wildlife reservoirs or was repeatedly introduced from outside Europe (as covered by European Union and the British Isles). Here, we analyze environmental data (soil characteristics and climate) from active Chinese plague reservoirs to assess whether such environmental conditions in Europe had ever supported “natural plague reservoirs”. We have used new statistical methods which are validated through predicting the presence of modern plague reservoirs in the western United States. We find no support for persistent natural plague reservoirs in either historical or modern Europe. Two factors make Europe unfavorable for long-term plague reservoirs: 1) Soil texture and biochemistry and 2) low rodent diversity. By comparing rodent communities in Europe with those in China and the United States, we conclude that a lack of suitable host species might be the main reason for the absence of plague reservoirs in Europe today. These findings support the hypothesis that long-term plague reservoirs did not exist in Europe and therefore question the importance of wildlife rodent species as the primary plague hosts in Europe.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 72091514) and Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, to L.X. and C.Z., the University of Oslo and the Research Council of Norway to the Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES) to N.C.S., the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 71973077) to Y.T. and D.L., the European Research Council (ERC) MedPlag (Grant AdG #324249) to B.B., and the SustES project (Grant CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000797) and European Research Council (ERC) MONOSTAR (Grant AdG #882727) to U.B.
• Keywords: Climate, disease reservoirs, rodent diversity, soil, humans, plague - epidemiology - history, environmental conditions, natural plague reservoirs, pandemics - history, Yersinia pestis, Europe.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Cohn, Professor Samuel
• Authors: Stenseth, N. C., Tao, Y., Zhang, C., Bramanti, B., Büntgen, U., Cong, X., Cui, Y., Zhou, H., Dawson, L. A., Mooney, S. J., Li, D., Fell, H. G., Cohn, S., Sebbane, F., Slavin, P., Liang, W., Tong, H., Yang, R., and Xu, L.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > History
• Journal Name: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
• Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
• ISSN: 0027-8424
• ISSN (Online): 1091-6490
• Published Online: 12 December 2022
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2022 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 119(51): e2209816119
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License