There may not have been a global corona crisis if the Earth had not warmed so much. That’s according to a new study that concludes that China’s Yunnan province could become a hotspot for bats due to climate change. The animals brought at least a hundred new coronaviruses into the region.
The study from the University of Cambridge and the German Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research is the first to make such a clear connection. The researchers point to the emergence of new vegetation in the province because of the warmer weather. At first there was only tropical undergrowth. That turned into tropical savannah to eventually become deciduous forest. This allowed many new bat species to spread. They carried all kinds of coronaviruses. The researchers estimate that they introduced about a hundred new virus types.
“In the last century, climate change has made the habitat for bats much more attractive at the likely origin of SARS-CoV-2. And thus also for the many coronaviruses that these animals carry, ”explains zoologist Robert Beyer of the University of Cambridge. The pangolins that also live in Yunnan may have acted as intermediate hosts for Covid-19. These animals were traded on the infamous market in Wuhan, where the virus presumably first spread to humans.
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