Genetic diversity and origins of invasive black rats (Rattus rattus) in Benin, West Africa

Etougbétché, Jonas; Houémènou, Gualbert; Dossou, Henri-Joël; Badou, Sylvestre; Gauthier, Philippe; Karim, Issaka Youssao Abdou; Nicolas, Violaine; Dobigny, Gauthier

doi:10.25225/jvb.20014

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 41 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The Republic of Benin, formerly Dahomey, is located in West Africa, surrounded by Togo, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Niger. Currently, Benin has an important maritime commerce through its International Sea port of Cotonou [ 17 ] with importation of vehicles, rice, fuels and palm oil ( https://www.tresor.economie.gouv.fr/Pays/BJ/commerce-exterieur-du-benin ) and exportation of raw cotton (34.5% of exportations), coconuts, Brazil nuts and cashews and gold to, inter alia, India, Bangladesh, China, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam ( oec.world/en/profile/country/ben/ ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A hotspot of Toxoplasma gondii Africa 1 lineage in Benin: How new genotypes from West Africa contribute to understand the parasite genetic diversity worldwide

Hamidović

Etougbétché²,

Tonouhewa

et al. 2021

PLoS Negl Trop Dis

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Through international trades, Europe, Africa and South America share a long history of exchanges, potentially of pathogens. We used the worldwide parasite Toxoplasma gondii to test the hypothesis of a historical influence on pathogen genetic diversity in Benin, a West African country with a longstanding sea trade history. In Africa, T. gondii spatial structure is still non-uniformly studied and very few articles have reported strain genetic diversity in fauna and clinical forms of human toxoplasmosis so far, even in African diaspora. Sera from 758 domestic animals (mainly poultry) in two coastal areas (Cotonou and Ouidah) and two inland areas (Parakou and Natitingou) were tested for T. gondii antibodies using a Modified Agglutination Test (MAT). The hearts and brains of 69 seropositive animals were collected for parasite isolation in a mouse bioassay. Forty-five strains were obtained and 39 genotypes could be described via 15-microsatellite genotyping, with a predominance of the autochthonous African lineage Africa 1 (36/39). The remaining genotypes were Africa 4 variant TUB2 (1/39) and two identical isolates (clone) of Type III (2/39). No difference in terms of genotype distribution between inland and coastal sampling sites was found. In particular, contrarily to what has been described in Senegal, no type II (mostly present in Europe) was isolated in poultry from coastal cities. This result seems to refute a possible role of European maritime trade in Benin despite it was one of the most important hubs during the slave trade period. However, the presence of the Africa 1 genotype in Brazil, predominant in Benin, and genetic analyses suggest that the triangular trade was a route for the intercontinental dissemination of genetic strains from Africa to South America. This supports the possibility of contamination in humans and animals with potentially imported virulent strains.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A hotspot of Toxoplasma gondii Africa 1 lineage in Benin: How new genotypes from West Africa contribute to understand the parasite genetic diversity worldwide

Hamidović

Etougbétché²,

Tonouhewa

et al. 2021

PLoS Negl Trop Dis

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The cytb region of the mitochondrial genome haplotypes were extracted using MEGA7, and combined with modern cytb haplotypes from previous publications 10,24,69,70 and this study. We aligned the data using MAFFT v7.123b 125 , then built a ML tree using RAxML v8.2.9 124 , with GTR+I+G model and 1000 bootstrap replicates.…”

Section: Phylogenetic Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to establish the relationship between the ancient rats and modern black rats from across their range, we analysed the cytochrome b (CYTB) region from our ancient samples alongside 132 previously unpublished modern CYTB sequences from across the Indian Ocean basin (Supplementary Table 9), and sequences published in previous studies 10,24,69,70 . The maximum likelihood tree of the CYTB region revealed that all the ancient rats from this study belong to the previously described black rat lineage I (Figure 2 , Supplementary Figure 4, 5 and Table 10).…”

Section: A Global Phylogeography Of the Black Rat Based On Mitochondrial Dnamentioning

confidence: 99%

Palaeogenomic analysis of black rat (Rattus rattus) reveals multiple European introductions associated with human economic history

Jamieson

Hulme-Beaman

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The distribution of the black rat (Rattus rattus) has been heavily influenced by its association with humans. The dispersal history of this non-native commensal rodent across Europe, however, remains poorly understood, and different introductions may have occurred during the Roman and medieval periods. Here, in order to reconstruct the population history of European black rats, we generated a de novo genome assembly of the black rat, 67 ancient black rat mitogenomes and 36 ancient nuclear genomes from sites spanning the 1st-17th centuries CE in Europe and North Africa. Analyses of mitochondrial DNA confirm that black rats were introduced into the Mediterranean and Europe from Southwest Asia. Genomic analyses of the ancient rats reveal a population turnover in temperate Europe between the 6th and 10th centuries CE, coincident with an archaeologically attested decline in the black rat population. The near disappearance and re-emergence of black rats in Europe may have been the result of the breakdown of the Roman Empire, the First Plague Pandemic, and/or post-Roman climatic cooling.

show abstract

“…For instance, the brown rat showed at least 13 evolutionary clusters globally [ 4 ]. Several evolutionary factors, such as climate and geography, predators, urbanization, and agricultural settlement, are behind these evolutionary changes [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. The desert environment is also a factor for the phenotypic and genotypic evolutionary change of mammals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphometric Study of Mus musculus, Rattus norvegicus, and Rattus rattus in Qatar

Islam

Farag

Mahmoudi

et al. 2021

Animals

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The current study was undertaken to estimate the morphometric pattern of three commensal rodents, i.e., Mus musculus, Rattus norvegicus, and Rattus rattus in Qatar. One hundred forty-eight rodents were captured from different facilities throughout Qatar. The captured rodents were used to identify the external body and cranio-mandibular morphometry. The study found that R. norvregicus was the most prevalent (n = 120, 81%, 95% CI: 73.83–87.05). Most of the rodents were collected from Al Rayan municipality (n = 92, 62%), were adults (n = 138, 93.2%, 95% CI: 87.92–96.71), and were from livestock farms (n = 79, 49%, 95% CI: 41.02–57.65). The rodents’ average body weights were 18.8 ± 2.2 gm, 264.3 ± 87.5 gm, and 130 ± 71.3 gm for M. musculus, R. norvegicus, and R. rattus, respectively. The research found that the studied rodents are smaller than those of other countries such as Turkey, Tunisia, and Iran. The study of morphometry is a useful tool for the traditional identification of small mammal species, including rodents. The average morphometric measurements of the external body and skull were normally distributed and can be used as a reference of R. norvegicus and R. rattus for Qatar. A further comprehensive study is required to investigate the rodent population index, eco-friendly control program, and public health importance in Qatar.

show abstract

Genetic diversity and origins of invasive black rats (Rattus rattus) in Benin, West Africa

Abstract: BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.

Cited by 10 publications

References 41 publications

A hotspot of Toxoplasma gondii Africa 1 lineage in Benin: How new genotypes from West Africa contribute to understand the parasite genetic diversity worldwide

A hotspot of Toxoplasma gondii Africa 1 lineage in Benin: How new genotypes from West Africa contribute to understand the parasite genetic diversity worldwide

Palaeogenomic analysis of black rat (Rattus rattus) reveals multiple European introductions associated with human economic history

Morphometric Study of Mus musculus, Rattus norvegicus, and Rattus rattus in Qatar

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About