Submitted:
15 January 2019
Posted:
16 January 2019
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Abstract
Cetacean Morbillivirus, the most relevant pathogen impacting the health and conservation of cetaceans worldwide, has shown in recent years an increased tendency to cross “interspecies barriers”, thereby giving rise to disease and mortality outbreaks in free-ranging dolphins and whales. The present article deals with the evolutionary “trajectories” of this viral pathogen, likely originating from Rinderpest Virus, along with its “journey” from land to sea (and viceversa), mimicking that of cetaceans' terrestrial ancestors.
Keywords:
Cetacean Morbillivirus
; Canine Distemper Virus
; Rinderpest Virus
; viral phylogeny
; viral evolution
; Host-pathogen interactions
; cetaceans
; aquatic mammals
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
