Caroline Cummings

My journal article with @danjbecker.bsky.social , @colincarlson.bsky.social and @viralemergence.org is featured on the @commsbio.nature.com homepage this week!! www.nature.com/commsbio/ check it out to see a cool bat picture by Brock Fenton!! 🦇💗🦇💗

a nice summary of new work led by @carolinecummings.bsky.social and in collaboration with @colincarlson.bsky.social and @viralemergence.org on the distribution of zoonotic risk across bat species.

Not all bats carry equal viral risk, new study reveals A study published in Communications Biology sheds new light on the relationship between bats and dangerous viruses. Led by researchers at the University of Oklahoma, the study shows that, contrary to widespread assumptions, not all bats carry viruses with high epidemic potential, only specific groups of species.

Only specific groups of bat species are likely to carry viruses with high epidemic potential, highlighting the importance of targeted surveillance and habitat conservation. doi.org/g985xg

🚨 Exciting new work out today led by @carolinecummings.bsky.social! Do bats host deadly viruses? Yes - but only specific bats (that just happen to be found in a lot of places!). Challenging some big ideas in the zoonosis world with data. Well done Caroline and team!!

I'm so excited for this project to be published! A huge thank you to @danjbecker.bsky.social @colincarlson.bsky.social , Amanda Vicente-Santos, @commsbio.nature.com, and @viralemergence.org 💗🦇💗🦇

I'm excited to announce that the first chapter of dissertation is published in @commsbio.nature.com !!! and i feel super fortunate that it could be published during bat week 💗🦇 www.nature.com/articles/s42... @danjbecker.bsky.social @colincarlson.bsky.social @/amandavicentesantos

close-up image of bat (Molossus nigricans) head area. Credit: Brock Fenton and Sherri Fenton.

just in time for #batweek --Phylogenetic and ML analyses show that viral epidemic potential is not uniform among bats: virulence, transmissibility, and death burden cluster within distinct clades.🦇@carolinecummings.bsky.social @colincarlson.bsky.social @viralemergence.org go.sn.pub/acnbg1

We are hiring a technician in the Simonis Lab at Auburn U! This is a two-year position with responsibilities for scouting and performing bat capture surveys at field sites (e.g. private and public lands, highway culverts).

Check out more details and submit materials here: forms.gle/tEUNyRc1hG3f...

@haileyrobertson.bsky.social and I are excited to officially launch our research exercise to identify the 100 most pressing questions about the ecology and evolution of emerging viruses! If you have some subject matter expertise in this area, we'd love to have you fill out our 10-minute survey below

very cool paper, I'm hoping to use this framework for my dissertation research!

Global hotspots of (a) observed vs (b) predicted betacoronavirus hosts.

📢 New in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social

A framework to predict zoonotic hosts under data uncertainty: a case study on betacoronaviruses
Tonelli&al: doi.org/10.1111/2041...

We predict unknown potential viral hosts to unveil unrecognised hotspots of betacoronaviruses: time to redefine surveillance?

Top panels: graphs showing increases in spillover events, extinction rates, and temperature anomalies over the last few centuries. Bottom panel: a map of 10 pandemics since the year 1900. Four were linked to agriculture, two to wildlife use, and one to climate change.

🚨😷🧪 NEW: A growing body of evidence shows that pandemics, biodiversity loss, and climate change are part of a broader polycrisis - but there are no simple solutions. A sweeping overview of "Pathogens and planetary change" for the first issue of @natrevbiodiv.bsky.social, out now 🔓 rdcu.be/d6lHl

Pathogens and planetary change - Nature Reviews Biodiversity This Review explores the relationship between emerging infectious diseases and biodiversity loss, and how both are connected to global environmental changes in the Anthropocene.

How are pathogens and parasites responding to planetary change, what does this mean for people and biodiversity, and what is to be done? New @viralemergence.org synthesis out today in Nature Rev Biodiversity (@natrevbiodiv.bsky.social) with a fantastic author team🧪😷
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

We mapped the geographic distributions of bat clades with unusually high virulence in tandem with spatial data on anthropogenic footprint to visualize "hotspots" of zoonotic risk to help guide viral surveillance ☺️ (5/5)

Our analyses show that bats do not come out as a group with uniform viral epidemic potential: virulence and transmissibility are clustered only within distinct subclades of bats, often within cosmopolitan families spanning both the western and eastern hemispheres! (4/5)

We investigated whether bats, as an entire order, emerge organically to have a higher propensity to host virulent viruses than other taxa or if analyses that are agnostic to taxonomic order would instead identify subclades of bats exhibiting high virulence. (3/5)

Prior research shows that bats (order: Chiroptera) host high viral diversity and the greatest number of viruses with high virulence (i.e., severity of disease) in humans. (2/5)

Hi! I'm new to blue sky, and I have a new preprint out! 🥳🥳 This work is the first chapter of my dissertation: biorxiv.org/content/10.1... The study was completed with the @viralemergence.org with support from @danjbecker.bsky.social, @colincarlson.bsky.social, and Amanda Vicente-Santos ☺️🦇⚕️🦠👩‍🔬 (1/5)