Remotely Sensed Correlates of Phylogeny: Tick-Borne Flaviviruses.

Investigates whether climatic factors direct the evolution of the vectorborne flaviviruses by testing whether the eco-climatic spaces occupied by closely related viruses are more or less similar than those occupied by more distantly related ones. Prediction that climate has been a significant factor in the evolution of these pathogens and, by implication, will be important in future events on both evolutionary and ecological time-scales; Scarcity of explanations for the driving force and constraints that have shaped the evolutionary origin of new pathogen strains; Use of data from molecular biology which can be linked with data from satellites that allow us to characterize environmental conditions on a global scale; Use of satellite imagery; which show broad-scale patterns that are consistent with the pattern of new tick-borne flaviviruses having evolved sequentially in a cline across the world; Results, including that distribution of three tick-borne flaviviruses from western Europe have been captured simultaneously by the same 10 satellite-derived seasonal climatic variables; Test for significant matches between their phylogenetic tree and an independent tree derived from quantitative descriptions of the viruses? `eco-space?, which will indicate the extent of key ecological drivers for specific evolutionary events, whose biological basis can then be explored in detail.