Commercial hunting and habitat loss are major drivers of the rapid decline of great apes [1]. Ecotourism and research have been widely promoted as a means of providing alternative value for apes and their habitats [2]. However, close contact between humans and habituated apes during ape tourism and research has raised concerns that disease transmission risks might outweigh benefits [3-7]. To date only bacterial and parasitic infections of typically low virulence have been shown to move from humans to wild apes [8, 9]. Here, we present the first direct evidence of virus transmission from humans to wild apes. Tissue samples from habituated chimpanzees that died during three respiratory-disease outbreaks at our research site, Côte d'Ivoire, contained two common human paramyxoviruses. Viral strains sampled from chimpanzees were closely related to strains circulating in contemporaneous, worldwide human epidemics. Twenty-four years of mortality data from observed chimpanzees reveal that such respiratory outbreaks could have a long history. In contrast, survey data show that research presence has had a strong positive effect in suppressing poaching around the research site. These observations illustrate the challenge of maximizing the benefit of research and tourism to great apes while minimizing the negative side effects.

Inventory, monitoring, and experimental studies have been the primary approaches for documenting and understanding the problem of amphibian declines. However, little attention has been given to placing human-caused perturbations affecting one or more life-history stages in the context of the overall population dynamics of particular species. We used two types of ecological sensitivity analysis to determine which vital rates have the strongest influence on the population dynamics of western toads ( Bufo boreas ), red-legged frogs ( Rana aurora ), and common frogs ( Rana temporaria ), pond-breeding amphibians that have declined in all or portions of their ranges. Our results suggest that post-metamorphic vital rates and highly variable vital rates both have a strong influence on the population dynamics of these species and therefore deserve more research and management attention. Ecological sensitivity analysis should be more widely applied to the issue of amphibian declines in order to identify the most plausible mechanisms of decline and prioritize which lifehistory stages should be the focus of research and management efforts. Future experimental studies of perturbations in one or more life-history stage should attempt to link the magnitude of the perturbation measured with the overall population-level consequences. Finally, current research, inventory, and monitoring efforts should be supplemented with demographic studies so that quantitative analyses can be applied to a wider range of species and life-history groups.

Emerging pathogens potentially undergo rapid evolution while expanding in population size and geographic range during the course of invasion, yet it is generally difficult to demonstrate how these processes interact. Our analysis of a 30-yr data set covering a large-scale rabies virus outbreak among North American raccoons reveals the long lasting effect of the initial infection wave in determining how viral populations are genetically structured in space. We further find that coalescent-based estimates derived from the genetic data yielded an amazingly accurate reconstruction of the known spatial and demographic dynamics of the virus over time. Our study demonstrates the combined evolutionary and population dynamic processes characterizing the spread of pathogen after its introduction into a fully susceptible host population. Furthermore, the results provide important insights regarding the spatial scale of rabies persistence and validate the use of coalescent approaches for uncovering even relatively complex population histories. Such approaches will be of increasing relevance for understanding the epidemiology of emerging zoonotic diseases in a landscape context. invasion ͉ phylogeography ͉ Procyon lotor ͉ wildlife disease ͉ zoonoses

HighlightsWe review the problem of identifying reservoirs of infection for multihost pathogens and provide an overview of current approaches and future directions.We provide a conceptual framework for classifying patterns of incidence and prevalence.We review current methods that allow us to characterise the components of reservoir-target systems.Ecological theory offers promising new ways to prioritise populations when designing interventions.We propose using interventions as quasi-experiments embedded in adaptive management frameworks.Integration of data and analysis provides powerful new opportunities for studying multihost systems.