Evolutionary characterization of the establishment of H6 influenza viruses in domestic geese in China: implications for the position of the host in the ecosystem

Geese, both wild and domestic, are generally considered part of the natural reservoir for influenza A viruses. The highly pathogenic H5 Goose/Guangdong avian influenza virus lineage that is still causing outbreaks worldwide was first detected in domestic geese in 1996. However, while wild geese might have a somewhat restricted role in the influenza ecosystem, the role of domestic geese is little studied. Here, 109 H6 viruses isolated from domestic geese during 2001-2018 in southern China had their phylogeny, evolutionary dynamics, and molecular signatures characterized to examine the role of domestic geese. Our findings demonstrated that all geese H6 viruses were derived from H6 viruses established in ducks and that they subsequently formed three distinct hemagglutinin lineages. Rapid evolution of the hemagglutinin genes was not detected after the duck-to-goose transmissions of H6 viruses that then circulated in geese. Despite long-term persistence in geese, H6 viruses were rarely observed to transmit back to ducks or terrestrial poultry and never exchanged genes with viruses from other subtypes. Most geese H6 viruses maintained the primary molecular signatures of their duck precursors. This study raises the possibility that, rather than being part of the natural reservoir, domestic geese might be more like an aberrant host species for influenza A viruses, and perhaps a “dead-end” host.