Urban development has major impacts on connectivity among wildlife populations and is thus likely an important factor shaping pathogen transmission in wildlife. However, most investigations of wildlife diseases in urban areas focus on prevalence and infection risk rather than potential effects of urbanization on transmission itself. Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is a directly transmitted retrovirus that infects many felid species and can be used as a model for studying pathogen transmission at landscape scales. We investigated phylogenetic relationships among FIV isolates sampled from five bobcat (Lynx rufus) populations in coastal southern California that appear isolated due to major highways and dense urban development. Divergence dates among FIV phylogenetic lineages in several cases reflected historical urban growth and construction of major highways. We found strong FIV phylogeographic structure among three host populations north‐west of Los Angeles, largely coincident with host genetic structure. In contrast, relatively little FIV phylogeographic structure existed among two genetically distinct host populations south‐east of Los Angeles. Rates of FIV transfer among host populations did not vary significantly, with the lack of phylogenetic structure south‐east of Los Angeles unlikely to reflect frequent contemporary transmission among populations. Our results indicate that major barriers to host gene flow can also act as barriers to pathogen spread, suggesting potentially reduced susceptibility of fragmented populations to novel directly transmitted pathogens. Infrequent exchange of FIV among host populations suggests that populations would best be managed as distinct units in the event of a severe disease outbreak. Phylogeographic inference of pathogen transmission is useful for estimating the ability of geographic barriers to constrain disease spread and can provide insights into contemporary and historical drivers of host population connectivity.

中文翻译：

---

病毒会过马路吗？山猫种群中的病毒系统发育地理模式反映了城市发展的历史。


城市发展对野生动物种群之间的连通性产生重大影响，因此可能是影响野生动物病原体传播的重要因素。然而，大多数对城市地区野生动物疾病的调查都集中在患病率和感染风险上，而不是城市化对传播本身的潜在影响。猫科动物免疫缺陷病毒（FIV）是一种直接传播的逆转录病毒，可感染许多猫科动物物种，可用作研究景观尺度病原体传播的模型。我们调查了从南加州沿海五个山猫 ( Lynx rufus ) 种群中取样的 FIV 分离株之间的系统发育关系，这些种群由于主要高速公路和密集的城市发展而显得孤立。在一些案例中，FIV 系统发育谱系之间的分歧日期反映了历史上的城市发展和主要高速公路的建设。我们在洛杉矶西北部的三个寄主种群中发现了强大的 FIV 系统发育地理学结构，与寄主遗传结构基本一致。相比之下，洛杉矶东南部两个遗传上不同的宿主群体中存在相对较少的 FIV 系统发育地理学结构。 FIV 在宿主人群之间的传播率没有显着差异，洛杉矶东南部缺乏系统发育结构不太可能反映当代人群之间频繁的传播。我们的结果表明，宿主基因流动的主要障碍也可以充当病原体传播的障碍，这表明分散的人群对新型直接传播病原体的易感性可能降低。宿主群体之间 FIV 的交换很少，这表明在严重疾病爆发时，最好将群体作为不同的单位进行管理。 病原体传播的系统地理学推断有助于估计地理障碍限制疾病传播的能力，并可以深入了解宿主种群连通性的当代和历史驱动因素。