title: Climate-driven introduction of the Black Death and successive plague reintroductions into Europe.
abstract: The Black Death, originating in Asia, arrived in the Mediterranean harbors of Europe in 1347 CE, via the land and sea trade routes of the ancient Silk Road system. This epidemic marked the start of the second plague pandemic, which lasted in Europe until the early 19th century. This pandemic is generally understood as the consequence of a singular introduction of Yersinia pestis, after which the disease established itself in European rodents over four centuries. To locate these putative plague reservoirs, we studied the climate fluctuations that preceded regional plague epidemics, based on a dataset of 7,711 georeferenced historical plague outbreaks and 15 annually resolved tree-ring records from Europe and Asia. We provide evidence for repeated climate-driven reintroductions of the bacterium into European harbors from reservoirs in Asia, with a delay of 15 ± 1 y. Our analysis finds no support for the existence of permanent plague reservoirs in medieval Europe.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, NO-0316 Oslo, Norway; boris.schmid@gmail.com n.c.stenseth@ibv.uio.no.
authors.forename: Boris V
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0452-623X
authors.initials: BV
authors.lastname: Schmid
authors.affiliation: Dendroecology, Landscape Dynamics, Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland; Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland; Global Change Research Centre AS CR, v.v.i., CZ-60300 Brno, Czech Republic; and.
authors.forename: Ulf
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Büntgen
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, NO-0316 Oslo, Norway;
authors.forename: W Ryan
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Easterday
authors.affiliation: Dendroecology, Landscape Dynamics, Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland;
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ginzler
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Oslo, NO-0372 Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Walløe
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, NO-0316 Oslo, Norway;
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bramanti
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, NO-0316 Oslo, Norway; boris.schmid@gmail.com n.c.stenseth@ibv.uio.no.
authors.forename: Nils Chr
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Stenseth
mesh_terms: D002980:Climate; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000266:history; D005060:Europe / Q000453:epidemiology; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D010930:Plague / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission*
keywords: Yersinia pestis; climate-driven disease dynamics; medieval epidemiology