Climate drives geographic variation in individual Peromyscus leucopus immunity against zoonotic disease.

Abstract

Geographic variation in host immunity could have major influences on disease dynamics, including zoonotic forms that affect humans. Such variation in immunity could be driven by variation in climate, either directly or, more likely, indirectly via resource availability. We compared the immune gene expression of wild Peromyscus leucopus mice, the primary reservoir for the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi, among eight sites spanning 1,400 km of the northeastern United States. We discovered that climate conditions at sites strongly predicted immunity to the most common zoonotic pathogen in the U.S.: mice from warmer, wetter sites were more prepared to resist B. burgdorferi infections. Our results reveal a novel pathway by which climate change could affect pathogen spillover or zoonotic epidemics generally.