Modeling Ebola

Ebola virus disease has caused devastating outbreaks. Ebola viruses have been detected in bats, although the true reservoir is still unknown. Due to an increasing number of outbreaks in recent years, some have hypothesized that human disturbance, land-use change, or increased human population density might cause outbreaks. The potential of bat distributions has been largely unexplored.
​You can see what we found below: 

To better understand why Ebola virus disease outbreaks occur where they do, we used two types of ecological models to compare the diversity of all bats species, the diversity of each family of bats, human population density, road density, and the amount of crops and pastures at locations where Ebola viruses have spilled over to random locations in sub-Saharan Africa where Ebola virus has not spilled over. You can see the distribution of these variables below:
According to both models, we saw that Ebola virus disease was associated with areas of high bat diversity and in particular areas with high diversity of Nycterid bats:
Here you can compare the distribution of species richness for all bat species and species belonging to the Nycterid family:
We also found that Ebola disease spillover occurs where pasture cover is low. We did not see any effect of human population density, road density, or crop cover.

Why Nycterid bats?

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  • So far, Ebola has NOT been detected in Nycterids
  • BUT very few Nycterid species have been screened
  • Nycterids are occasionally consumed
  • They may roost in buildings or caves that people enter
  • They may roost with or near other animals that could be hosts
  • Maybe Nycterid diversity correlates with some other variable that we haven’t measured but explains Ebola outbreaks.
But don't forget - bats are essential parts of their ecosystems and provide important ecosystem services that benefit people - such as controlling insect populations, dispersing seeds, or pollinating plants.
There is no reason to be afraid of bats! Please respect bats as wild animals and not approach or touch them.

Leishmania and Leishmaniasis in Bats

Leishmaniasis is a disease caused by parasites in the genus Leishmania, which are transmitted to people via sandflies that may cause organ failure or disfiguring damage to skin and cartilage.
While in Brazil as a Fulbright grantee at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, we caught bats that had lesions and suspected infection with Leishmania​: 
We tested a total of five bats for Leishmania using using PCR and PCR-RFLP.
We detected Leishmania (Viannia) braziliensis in two bats - one Glossophoga soricina with lesions and positive liver tissue (possibly indicating visceral leishmaniasis) and Molossus molossus showing no lesions or symptoms.