Daniel J. Becker

The paper adapts flow cytometry for field studies of immune cell seasonality in wild bats, revealing seasonal changes in immune cell populations.

This study evaluates the reliability of using wing biopsies to detect blood-borne pathogens in bats, finding lower detection rates compared to blood but still viable for initial pathogen discovery.

The paper identifies multiple Trypanosoma cruzi genotypes in vampire bats in Belize, highlighting their potential role in linking sylvatic, domestic, and human transmission cycles of Chagas disease.

The paper investigates factors determining effective reassortment in orthohantaviruses, finding that ecological overlap and molecular compatibility are key for reassortant establishment.

The paper identifies Bartonella and hemotropic Mycoplasma species in synanthropic bats in Kenya and assesses their potential to infect humans.

The paper analyzes DrBHV diversity across Latin America and the Caribbean, showing widespread co-infection and geographic spread, suggesting vaccine vectors could be locally sourced.

The paper assesses zoonotic virus risks in urban-adapted wildlife by analyzing viral diversity and zoonotic potential across seven species in 115 countries.

The paper detects Borrelia puertoricensis in migratory Mexican free-tailed bats in Oklahoma, indicating potential role in dispersal of tick-borne pathogens.

The paper uses metagenomic sequencing and qPCR to detect Trypanosoma cruzi in bats from Belize, demonstrating their role as bioindicators for emerging zoonoses.

The paper uses explainable AI to predict food shortages in Eastern Australian flying foxes, identifying environmental and bat-level features that predict nutritional stress with high accuracy.

This paper assesses how biodiversity databases can be used for pathogen discovery by analyzing tissue samples from bats and rodents in natural history museums.

This study compiles an open database of paramyxovirus studies in Old World fruit bats, identifies sampling biases, and finds evidence of host-switching among pteropodids.

The paper identifies bat subclades with high viral epidemic potential and links them to regions with high zoonotic risk.

The paper examines how habitat and season affect leukocyte profiles in Neotropical bats, finding species-specific responses and higher systemic inflammation in degraded habitats during the dry season.

The paper uses machine learning to screen museum tissues for novel coronaviruses and paramyxoviruses, recovering sequences from archived samples and identifying new host species.

This study compares microbial transmission efficiency and zoonotic risk among insectivores, rodents, and bats, finding insectivores have superior transmission and higher zoonotic risk by 2035.

The paper shows density increases network connectedness in wild animal populations, but effects saturate, with stronger spatial than social impacts.

This study analyzes microbial diversity in insectivores, finding they host many viruses related to humans and are key in virus transmission between species.

This study examines how habitat fragmentation affects Bartonella and hemoplasma infections in vampire bats over seven years, finding genotype-specific responses to forest loss and temporal changes.

The paper identifies novel and previously known alphacoronaviruses in three bat species in Belize and finds phylogenetic similarity between bat CoVs and human 229E and NL63 coronaviruses.

This study compares mercury levels in feces and fur of bats to develop a conversion factor for estimating contaminant exposure with minimal disturbance.

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

This study tests the effect of venipuncture site on bat hematology, finding no overall effect but species-level differences that may relate to life-history and phylogenetic factors.

The paper identifies novel hemotropic mycoplasmas and bartonellae in Mexican free-tailed bats and sympatric species, highlighting their genetic diversity and potential zoonotic significance.

This study integrates roosting ecology data into machine learning models to assess how anthropogenic roosting influences predictions of viral host species and diversity in bats.

The paper develops a framework to model pathogen transmission in co-roosting host communities, finding that roost-level prevalence is highest when hosts are closely related or distantly related, depending on species-specific traits.

This study identifies weather variables as the primary predictors of spring migration departure dates in Dark-eyed Juncos, surpassing the influence of physiological and parasitism factors.

This study uses long-read sequencing to analyze immune and cancer-related gene evolution in bats, finding gene contractions, expansions, and positive selection linked to their unique traits.

This study uses proteomics to analyze the serum proteome of vampire bats, identifying immunological proteins and detecting pathogens using mass spectrometry.