Dermacentor nuttalli subsp. identified

Wei, Hua, Xiong, Tao, Wang, Shan-Shan, Wang, Bai-Hui, Du, Li-Feng, Xu, Qing, Zheng, Jia-Jing, Cui, Xiao-Ming, Jia, Na, Jiang, Jia-Fu, Shi, Wenqiang, Zhao, Lin & Cao, Wu-Chun, 2024, Investigating the pathogens associated with Dermacentor nuttalli and its global distribution: A study integrating metagenomic sequencing, meta-analysis and niche modeling, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 23, pp. 100907-100907 : 100907-

3.2. Pathogens associated with D. nuttalli identified by meta-analysis

To comprehensively investigate the pathogens associated with D. nuttalli , we conducted a meta-analysis of pathogens based on published databases. As shown in Fig. 2 , 148 records were included in the integrated database for meta-analysis of pathogens. The meta-analysis showed that 48 pathogens were detected in D. nuttalli , of which 22 were pathogenic to humans, eight to animals and 18 had unknown pathogenic risks. These pathogens included 20 identified bacteria, seven identified eukaryotes, and 21 identified viruses ( Fig. 3 ; Supplementary Table S3).

Among those 20 identified bacteria, Rickettsia conorii subsp. raoultii had a high pooled positivity rate (41.13%, 95% CI: 0.29–0.53), concordant with our metagenomic analysis of field-collected ticks. Rickettsia sibirica , another human pathogenic Rickettsia , had a pooled positivity rate of 6.00% (95% CI: 0.02–0.11), which could cause human lymphangitis-associated rickettsiosis (LAR) ( Echevarría-Zubero et al., 2021; V´azquez-P´erez et al., 2022). Besides, Coxiella burnetii was also detected, which had a 25.60% pooled positive rate (95% CI: 0.05–0.47) and could cause Q fever ( Eldin et al., 2017). In addition, some eukaryotes in those 7 identified eukaryotes were pathogenic to humans. For example, Anaplasma ovis had the highest pooled positive rate (34.28%) and Anaplasma phagocytophilum corrig. had 4.71%, which could cause human granulocytic anaplasmosis ( Kahlon et al., 2013; Hosseini-Vasoukolaei et al., 2014). As well as Babesia sp. Venatorum, which had a 2.42% positive rate and caused human babesiosis ( Sun et al., 2014). In the viral category, Tick-borne encephalitis virus and Lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus were noted for their pathogenicity to humans, with positivity rates of 5.59% (95% CI: 0–0.15) and 6.91% (95% CI: 0.09–0.14), respectively. In addition to human pathogens, several pathogens in D. nuttalli were identified as particularly harmful to animals. For example, Brucella ovis (42.59%; 95% CI: 0.33–0.53), a gram-negative bacterium, is a serious hazard to sheep and leads to severe economic loss (Munoz ˜et al., 2022).

Figures

Fig. 2. Study design and data sources of the meta-analysis. A comprehensive meta-analysis was performed to evaluate D. nuttalli’s potential threats based on detected pathogens and geographical distribution positions. The database of D. nuttalli was constructed from four sources, including field surveys, literature review, a reference book, and an online biodiversity database (Global Biodiversity Information Facility, GBIF, https://www.gbif.org).

Fig. 3. Prevalence of pathogens associated with D. nuttalli. If there was only one study included in a certain pathogen, the positive rate would be calculated by the positive number of ticks divided by the total number of detected ticks, and without the 95% confidence interval. If there were more studies, the positive rate and 95% confidence interval would be calculated by meta-analysis.