Mastomys natalensis-borne mammarenaviruses appear specific to subspecific M. natalensis taxa rather than to the whole species. Yet mammarenaviruses carried by M. natalensis are known to spill over and jump hosts in northern sub-Saharan Africa. Phylogeographic studies increasingly show that, like M. natalensis, small mammals in sub-Saharan Africa are often genetically structured into several subspecific taxa. Other mammarenaviruses may thus also form virus-subspecific host taxon associations. To investigate this, and if mammarenaviruses carried by M. natalensis in southern Africa are less prone to spill-over, we screened 1225 non-M. natalensis samples from Tanzania where many small mammal taxa meet. We found mammarenavirus RNA in 6 samples. Genetic/genomic characterisation confirmed they were not spill-over from M. natalensis. We detected host jumps among rodent tribe members and an association between mammarenaviruses and subspecific taxa of Mus minutoides and Grammomys surdaster, indicating host genetic structure may be crucial to understand virus distribution and host specificity.

Evolutionary Ecology Group Department of Biology University of Antwerp Universiteitsplein 1 2610 Antwerp Belgium

Evolutionary Ecology Group Department of Biology University of Antwerp Universiteitsplein 1 2610 Antwerp Belgium; OD Taxonomy and Phylogeny Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences Vautierstraat 29 1000 Brussels Belgium

Institute of Pest Management Sokoine University of Agriculture P O Box 3110 Chuo Kikuu Morogoro Tanzania

Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the Czech Academy of Sciences Květná 8 603 65 Brno Czech Republic

Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the Czech Academy of Sciences Květná 8 603 65 Brno Czech Republic; Department of Botany and Zoology Masaryk University Kotlářská 2 611 37 Brno Czech Republic

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