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Modelling study is first to project how global warming will increase virus swapping between species.

• Natasha Gilbert

Over the next 50 years, climate change could drive more than 15,000 new cases of mammals transmitting viruses to other mammals, according to a study published in Nature¹. It’s one of the first to predict how global warming will shift wildlife habitats and increase encounters between species capable of swapping pathogens, and to quantify how many times viruses are expected to jump between species.

Many researchers say that the COVID-19 pandemic probably started when a previously unknown coronavirus passed from a wild animal to a human: a process called zoonotic transmission. A predicted rise in viruses jumping between species could trigger more outbreaks, posing a serious threat to human and animal health alike, the study warns — providing all the more reason for governments and health organizations to invest in pathogen surveillance and to improve health-care infrastructure.

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The study is “a critical first step in understanding the future risk of climate and land-use change on the next pandemic”, says Kate Jones, who models interactions between ecosystems and human health at University College London.

The research predicts that much of the new virus transmission will happen when species meet for the first time as they move to cooler locales because of rising temperatures. And it projects that this will occur most often in species-rich ecosystems at high elevations, particularly areas of Africa and Asia, and in areas that are densely populated by humans, including Africa’s Sahel region, India and Indonesia. Assuming that the planet warms by no more than 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures this century — a future predicted by some climate analyses — the number of first-time meetings between species will double by 2070, creating virus-transmission hotspots, the study says.

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