Abundant dsRNA Picobirnaviruses Show Little Geographic or Host Association in Terrestrial Systems

Picobirnaviruses are double-stranded RNA viruses known from a wide range of host species and locations but with unknown pathogenicity and host relationships. Here, we examined the diversity of picobirnaviruses from cattle and gorillas within and around Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park (BIFNP), Uganda, where wild and domesticated animals and humans live in relatively close contact. We use metagenomic sequencing with bioinformatic analyses to examine genetic diversity. We compared our findings to global Picobirnavirus diversity using clustering-based analyses. Picobirnavirus diversity at Bwindi was high, with 14 near-complete RdRp and 15 capsid protein sequences, and 497 new partial viral sequences recovered from 44 gorilla samples and 664 from 16 cattle samples. Sequences were distributed throughout a phylogenetic tree of globally derived picobirnaviruses. The relationship with Picobirnavirus diversity and host taxonomy follows a similar pattern to the global dataset, generally lacking pattern with either host or geography.