<i>Bcbva</i> positive necropsies in Taï National Park from 2006 to 2015.

<p>Taï National Park is located in the south-west of Côte d’Ivoire near the Liberian border (0°15’– 6°07’N, 7°25’– 7°54’W). The box in the overview map indicates the area enlarged in the big map. Carcass monitoring has revealed continuous occurrence of <i>Bcbva</i> in the research area (marked in gray in the big map) of the Taï Chimpanzee Project. All tested serological samples were collected in this area between 2006 and 2015. The 62 out of 139 (45%) carcasses that tested positive for <i>Bcbva</i> in this period are indicated in the map. Blue dots show duiker carcasses, red dots monkey carcasses and black dots chimpanzee carcasses. The figure has been created by the authors of the manuscript with the freely available software QGIS. Shape files for Africa were freely available at <a href="http://maplibrary.org/library/index.htm" target="_blank">http://maplibrary.org/library/index.htm</a>.</p

Results overview.

<p>Results overview.</p

Low antibody prevalence against <i>Bacillus cereus</i> biovar <i>anthracis</i> in Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire, indicates high rate of lethal infections in wildlife

<div><p><i>Bacillus cereus</i> biovar <i>anthracis (Bcbva)</i> is a member of the <i>B</i>. <i>cereus</i> group which carries both <i>B</i>. <i>anthracis</i> virulence plasmids, causes anthrax-like disease in various wildlife species and was described in several sub-Saharan African rainforests. Long-term monitoring of carcasses in Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire, revealed continuous wildlife mortality due to <i>Bcbva</i> in a broad range of mammalian species. While non-lethal anthrax infections in wildlife have been described for <i>B</i>. <i>anthracis</i>, nothing is known about the odds of survival following an anthrax infection caused by <i>Bcbva</i>. To address this gap, we present the results of a serological study of anthrax in five wildlife species known to succumb to <i>Bcbva</i> in this ecosystem. Specific antibodies were only detected in two out of 15 wild red colobus monkeys (<i>Procolobus badius</i>) and one out of 10 black-and-white colobus monkeys (<i>Colobus polykomos</i>), but in none of 16 sooty mangabeys (<i>Cercocebus atys</i>), 9 chimpanzees (<i>Pan troglodytes verus</i>) and 9 Maxwell’s duikers (<i>Cephalophus maxwellii</i>). The combination of high mortality and low antibody detection rates indicates high virulence of this disease across these different mammalian species.</p></div

Maximum likelihood tree based on core plasmid SNP data.

<p>A: pXO1. B: pXO2. <i>Bacillus anthracis</i> sequences are black, <i>Bacillus cereus</i> red and <i>Bacillus cereus</i> biovar anthracis blue. Branch support values were estimated by approximate likelihood ratio tests and are only reported for these internal branches not supported by maximal values. The trees were rooted with TempEst v1.5.</p

Maximum likelihood tree based on core chromosomal SNP data.

<p>A: Full tree. B: Zoom-in focused on the <i>Bacillus cereus</i> biovar anthracis clade. <i>Bacillus anthracis</i> sequences are black, <i>Bacillus cereus</i> and <i>Bacillus thuringiensis</i> red and <i>B</i>. <i>cereus</i> bv anthracis blue. Branch support values were estimated by approximate likelihood ratio tests and are only reported for these internal branches not supported by maximal values. This tree was rooted with TempEst v1.5.</p

Comparison of selected microbiological and molecular features of <i>Bacillus cereus</i> bv anthracis strains.

<p>Comparison of selected microbiological and molecular features of <i>Bacillus cereus</i> bv anthracis strains.</p

Partial mitochondrial cytochrome b and 16S sequences from bats captured in southeastern Guinea, 2014

Comprises all Sanger sequences generated for this study. Individuals were only assigned to the genus-level in the field. BLAST results were combined with this field assignment and further biological information (species distribution) to perform the final assignment. Sequence names are built as follows: sample #_final assignment

Partial mitochondrial 16S sequences from soil samples from Meliandou, Guinea, 2014

This ZIP file comprises demultiplexed FASTQ files corresponding to 30 PCR products sequenced on a MiSeq. A tab-delimited list is provided as the ReadMe

SNP_Alignment_TNP_Bcbva_pXO1

Alignment of variant sites of Bcbva plasmid pXO1 sequences from TNP (Côte d’Ivoire, n=124) and Grebo (Liberia, n=2). One sequence per host hosts (mammals/flies, two divergent isolates for fly 600) was included and the final alignment of variant sites is 18bp long

SNP_Alignment_sub-Saharan_Africa_Bcbva_Chromosome

Alignment of variant sites of chromosomal Bcbva sequences from Côte d'Ivoire (CI), Cameroon (CAM), Liberia (505-4 and 506-4) and CAR (363-2 and 364-1). The final alignment of variant sites is 1016bp long