Since 2014, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5 viruses of clade 2.3.4.4 have been dominating the outbreaks across Europe, causing massive deaths among poultry and wild birds. However, the factors shaping these broad‐scale outbreak patterns, especially those related to waterbird community composition, remain unclear. In particular, we do not know whether these risk factors differ from those of other H5 clades. Addressing this knowledge gap is important for predicting and preventing future HPAI outbreaks. Using extensive waterbird survey datasets from about 6883 sites, we here explored the effect of waterbird community composition on HPAI H5Nx (clade 2.3.4.4) spatial patterns in the 2016/2017 and 2020/2021 epidemics in Europe, and compared it with the 2005/2006 HPAI H5N1 (clade 2.2) epidemic. We showed that HPAI H5 occurrences in wild birds in the three epidemics were strongly associated with very similar waterbird community attributes, which suggested that, in nature, similar interspecific transmission processes operate between the HPAI H5 subtypes or clades. Importantly, community phylogenetic diversity consistently showed a negative association with H5 occurrence in all three epidemics, suggesting a dilution effect of phylogenetic diversity. In contrast, waterbird community variables showed much weaker associations with HPAI H5Nx occurrence in poultry. Our results demonstrate that models based on previous epidemics can predict future HPAI H5 patterns in wild birds, implying that it is important to include waterbird community factors in future HPAI studies to predict outbreaks and improve surveillance activities.

中文翻译：

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水鸟成分对欧洲 HPAI H5 发生的强烈且一致的影响


自2014年以来，2.3.4.4分支的高致病性禽流感（HPAI）H5病毒一直在欧洲各地的疫情中占据主导地位，导致家禽和野生鸟类大量死亡。然而，影响这些大规模爆发模式的因素，特别是与水鸟群落组成相关的因素，仍不清楚。特别是，我们不知道这些风险因素是否与其他 H5 分支的风险因素不同。解决这一知识差距对于预测和预防未来高致病性禽流感的爆发非常重要。我们使用来自约 6883 个地点的广泛水鸟调查数据集，探讨了 2016/2017 年和 2020/2021 年欧洲流行期间水鸟群落组成对 HPAI H5Nx（进化枝 2.3.4.4）空间模式的影响，并将其与 2005 年/ 2006 年 HPAI H5N1（进化枝 2.2）流行。我们发现，三种流行病中野生鸟类中 HPAI H5 的发生与非常相似的水鸟群落属性密切相关，这表明，在自然界中，HPAI H5 亚型或进化枝之间存在类似的种间传播过程。重要的是，在所有三种流行病中，群落系统发育多样性始终与 H5 的发生呈负相关，这表明系统发育多样性存在稀释效应。相比之下，水鸟群落变量与家禽中 HPAI H5Nx 发生的关联性要弱得多。我们的结果表明，基于以往流行病的模型可以预测野生鸟类未来的 HPAI H5 模式，这意味着在未来的 HPAI 研究中纳入水鸟群落因素对于预测疫情和改进监测活动非常重要。