Host relatedness and landscape connectivity shape pathogen spread in the puma, a large secretive carnivore

Abstract

Urban expansion can fundamentally alter wildlife movement and geneflow, but how urba-nization alters pathogen spread is poorly understood. Here, we combine high resolution hostand viral genomic data with landscape variables to examine the context of viral spread inpuma (Pumaconcolor) from two contrasting regions: one bounded by the wildland urbaninterface (WUI) and one unbounded with minimal anthropogenic development (UB). Wefound landscape variables and host geneflow explained significant amounts of variation offeline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) spread in the WUI, but not in the unbounded region. Themost important predictors of viral spread also differed; host spatial proximity, host related-ness, and mountain ranges played a role in FIV spread in the WUI, whereas roads might havefacilitated viral spread in the unbounded region. Our research demonstrates how anthro-pogenic landscapes can alter pathogen spread, providing a more nuanced understanding ofhost-pathogen relationships to inform disease ecology in free-ranging species