Raina K. Plowright

Modeling the dietary effects on bat viral shedding and potential consequences for pathogen spillover

This study models how diet affects viral shedding and spillover risk in Jamaican fruit bats infected with H18N11, finding diet-dependent interactions between citrulline and TNF influence shedding and transmission.

Black flying foxes in Australia harbor novel Borrelia lineages adjacent to zoonotic clades

The paper investigates Borrelia infections in black flying foxes, finding two novel haplotypes distinct from known zoonotic clades.

Integrating predictors of host condition into spatiotemporal multi-scale models of virus shedding

The paper develops a multi-scale statistical model to predict Hendra virus shedding in black flying foxes by integrating environmental and host condition factors across spatial and temporal scales.

Jamaican fruit bats (Artibeus jamaicensis) competence for Ebola virus but not Marburg virus is driven by intrinsic differences in viral entry and IFN-I signaling antagonism.

This study shows Jamaican fruit bats can support EBOV replication and shedding but not MARV, due to differences in viral entry and IFN-I signaling suppression.

Rapid gastrointestinal tract transit time in volant vertebrates, with implications for gut microbiome convergence: Results from a meta-analysis

This study quantifies GIT passage times in volant vertebrates, finding faster transit times in bats and birds compared to non-volant species, with implications for gut microbiome convergence.

Novel Hendra virus variant detected by sentinel surveillance of Australian horses.

A novel Hendra virus variant was identified in Australian horses, showing 83% nucleotide identity to the prototype strain and suggesting potential effectiveness of existing antibodies and vaccines.

Optimizing non-invasive sampling of an infectious bat virus

This study evaluates under-roost sampling methods for estimating viral prevalence in bat populations and recommends a stratified random design to minimize bias.