Bat rabies in France: Analysis of national surveillance data reveals contrasting bioclimatic preferences between EBLV-1a and EBLV-1b of the common serotine ( <i>Cnephaeus (Eptesicus) serotinus</i> ) bats

Bat rabies in mainland France, as in the rest of Europe, is mainly caused by European bat lyssavirus 1 (EBLV-1; Lyssavirus hamburg), which is hosted almost exclusively by Cnephaeus (Eptesicus) serotinus, a bat species presents on the whole metropolitan France territory.Two distinct variants of EBLV-1, namely EBLV-1a and EBLV-1b, have been previously identified in mainland France and exhibit separate with a little overlap distributions, i.e. parapatric distributions.Because bats, and potentially the pathogens they harbour, are highly sensitive to climatic variability due to their physiological traits (including heterothermy), this study evaluates the influence of climatic conditions on the nationalscale geographical distribution of the two variants.Using generalized linear models (GLMs) and species distribution models (SDMs), we demonstrate a significant association between temperature, precipitation, and variant distribution.Among analysed samples, the occurrence of EBLV-1 cases was influenced by mild temperatures during January-February (winter), high temperatures during Julyhttps://