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A lot of things needed to come together," Büntgen said, "and if only one of them wasn't there, then this pandemic wouldn't have happened." An interesting wrinkle By making a strong case that the plague bacterium arrived through Mediterranean ports as the result of volcanic activity, the study adds another interesting wrinkle to scientists' understanding of the intersection of climate change and disease dynamics, said Mark Welford, a professor and head of geography at the University of Northern Iowa, in an email. The new research also nudges forward the ongoing debate on how weather fluctuations might have influenced the start of the Black Death, according to Mark Bailey, a professor of late medieval history at the University of East Anglia in England. "Their novelty is to emphasise the link between volcanic activity, dearth and changing grain trade routes in the two years before the Black Death exploded across Europe: we already knew about harvest failures, and the grain trade with the east more likely intensified rather than changed in 1347," he added. Praising how the paper demonstrates the interconnectedness of the medieval economy, Alex Brown, an associate professor in medieval economic and social history at England's Durham University, said in an email: "Bauch and Büntgen's study demonstrates the significance of understanding the relationship between people, animals and the environment, for both the study of historical pandemics and future pandemic preparedness." He also was not involved with the research."