Data from: Reconstructing the emergence of a lethal infectious disease of wildlife supports a key role for spread through translocations by humans

There have been few reconstructions of wildlife disease emergences, despite their extensive impact on biodiversity and human health. This is in large part attributable to the lack of structured and robust spatio-temporal datasets. We overcame logistical problems of obtaining suitable information by using data from a citizen science project and formulating spatio-temporal models of the spread of a wildlife pathogen (genus Ranavirus, infecting amphibians). We evaluated three main hypotheses for the rapid increase in disease reports in the UK: that outbreaks were being reported more frequently, that climate change had altered the interaction between hosts and a previously widespread pathogen, and that disease was emerging due to spatial spread of a novel pathogen. Our analysis characterized localized spread from nearby ponds, consistent with amphibian dispersal, but also revealed a highly significant trend for elevated rates of additional outbreaks in localities with higher human population density—pointing to human activities in also spreading the virus. Phylogenetic analyses of pathogen genomes support the inference of at least two independent introductions into the UK. Together these results point strongly to humans repeatedly translocating ranaviruses into the UK from other countries and between UK ponds, and therefore suggest potential control measures.Citizen science reports of amphibian mortality events in the UK between 1991 and 2010This a csv file where each record relates to a citizen science report of amphibian mortality in the UK between 1991-2010. The fields cover georeference data and data on the mortality event (numbers of affected animals and signs of disease observed).ReconRVemerg_UK_1991-2010_CitSciRecords_SJP.csvNexus alignment of UK ranaviruses plus viruses which provide global contextThis nexus alignment was used to construct the phylogeny in figure 5 of the attached publication. It is a concatenated alignment of seven partial open reading frames detailed in Price et al. (2014). The resulting phylogeny visualises relationships of UK ranaviruses in a global context.ReconRVemerg_UK_alignment_SJP.ne