High pathogenicity avian influenza virus transmission is shaped by inter-specific social network structure

Emerging zoonotic and epizootic pathogens that spill over from wildlife are a persistent, and often intractable, threat to human and animal health ^1,2 with farreaching consequences for global economic and food security ³ . This is particularly true for multi-host systems like wild birds, where ecological and behavioural diversity across many species interact, giving rise to complex transmission pathways ^4,5 and, presenting a challenge for proactive surveillance ⁵ . Here we show that wild bird social network structure predicted viral genetic distance between high pathogenicity avian influenza viruses (HPAIV/s). Links in the network predicted close genetic distance between viral genomes, consistent with HPAIV transmission among species that co-occur in the wild. More so, species connection strength, over-and-above the effect of abundance, also predicted viral genetic distance. Our study provides an empirical demonstration of the drivers of disease transmission through complex multi-species communities of wild animals and, the use of social network analysis as framework for wildlife disease surveillance.