Climate change may have played a "key role" in the transmission of the coronavirus to humans by driving several species of pathogen-carrying bats into closer contact, research shows.
The virus, which has killed more than two million people and caused unprecedented global disruption, is thought to have originated in bats in southeast Asia.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge used temperature and rainfall data over the last 100 years to model populations of dozens of bat species based on their habitat requirements.
They found that over the last century, 40 species had relocated to southern China, Laos and Myanmar - the area where genetic analysis suggests the virus known as SARS-CoV-2 first appeared.