Mandrills use olfaction to socially avoid parasitized conspecifics

Poirotte, Clémence; Massol, François; Herbert, Anaïs; Willaume, Eric; Bomo, Pacelle M.; Kappeler, Peter M.; Charpentier, Marie

doi:10.1126/sciadv.1601721

Cited by 151 publications

(168 citation statements)

References 36 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

168

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…, Poirotte et al. ). Mandrills ( Mandrillus sphinx ) are able to exclude conspecifics infected by endoparasites by avoiding grooming with them (Poirotte et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disease avoidance, and breeding group age and size condition the dispersal patterns of western lowland gorilla females

Baudouin

Gatti

Levréro

et al. 2019

Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social dispersal is an important feature of population dynamics. When female mammals occur in polygynous groups, their dispersal decisions are conditioned by various female‐, male‐, and group‐related factors. Among them, the influence of disease often remains difficult to assess. To address this challenge, we used long‐term monitoring data from two gorilla populations (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) affected by infectious skin disease lesions. After controlling for other potentially influential factors, we investigated to which extent disease avoidance drives the dispersal decisions of gorilla females. We showed that the infection of a silverback of a breeding group by the skin disease increased the probability of adult females to emigrate. Moreover, adult females avoided breeding groups with a high prevalence of skin disease by emigrating from them and immigrating into healthier ones. Age of the breeding group was also an important factor. Adult females left older groups, near the end of a male tenure, to join younger ones led by younger fully grown silverbacks that could be of high reproductive and protective value. Our study highlights that, although females select for high‐quality males, disease avoidance is a critical driver of their dispersion decision.

show abstract

“…, Poirotte et al. ). Mandrills ( Mandrillus sphinx ) are able to exclude conspecifics infected by endoparasites by avoiding grooming with them (Poirotte et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disease avoidance, and breeding group age and size condition the dispersal patterns of western lowland gorilla females

Baudouin

Gatti

Levréro

et al. 2019

Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Social interactions between individuals influence infectious disease dynamics at the population level (Aiello et al., ; Clay, Lehmer, Previtali, St. Jeor, & Dearing, ; Grear, Perkins, & Hudson, ), so understanding factors affecting these interactions and how they change in the presence of disease will facilitate more accurate predictions of how diseases spread (Aiello et al., ; Hawley, Etienne, Ezenwa, & Jolles, ; Lloyd‐Smith, Schreiber, Kopp, & Getz, ; Paull et al., ; VanderWaal & Ezenwa, ). Social animals associating with infected conspecifics likely increase their risk of infection, particularly with directly transmitted disease‐causing organisms, and there is evidence from multiple taxa that they avoid doing so (Behringer, Butler, & Shields, ; Croft et al., ; Goodall, ; Kavaliers, Fudge, Colwell, & Choleris, ; Kiesecker, Skelly, Beard, & Preisser, ; Poirotte et al., ; Schaller, ). For many animals, such “social barriers” to disease transmission may be as important as immunological or physical ones (Loehle, ; Schaller, ; Zylberberg, Klasing, & Hahn, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transmission risk predicts avoidance of infected conspecifics in Trinidadian guppies

Stephenson

Perkins

Cable

2018

Journal of Animal Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Associating with conspecifics afflicted with infectious diseases increases the risk of becoming infected, but engaging in avoidance behaviour incurs the cost of lost social benefits. Across systems, infected individuals vary in the transmission risk they pose, so natural selection should favour risk-sensitive avoidance behaviour that optimally balances the costs and benefits of sociality. Here, we use the guppy Poecilia reticulata-Gyrodactylus turnbulli host-parasite system to test the prediction that individuals avoid infected conspecifics in proportion to the transmission risk they pose. In dichotomous choice tests, uninfected fish avoided both the chemical and visual cues, presented separately, of infected conspecifics only in the later stages of infection. A transmission experiment indicated that this avoidance behaviour accurately tracked transmission risk (quantified as both the speed at which transmission occurs and the number of parasites transmitting) through the course of infection. Together, these findings reveal that uninfected hosts can use redundant cues across sensory systems to inform dynamic risk-sensitive avoidance behaviour. This correlation between the transmission risk posed by infected individuals and the avoidance response they elicit has implications for the evolutionary ecology of infectious disease, and its explicit inclusion may improve the ability of epidemic models to predict disease spread.

show abstract

“…These protective responses in humans have been coined as the “behavioral immune system” and are associated with the elicitation of anticipatory neuroimmune responses, appropriate affective and cognitive responses, and relevant avoidance responses that may be the initial defense against pathogens. Similar aversive and avoidance responses to parasites and pathogens are evident in non‐human animals and have similarly been interpreted as reflecting disgust and perhaps a comparable behavioral immune system . Although not explicitly stated these aversive and avoidance may be considered in the context of a behavioral immune system.…”

Section: Social Cognition Disgust and Pathogen Avoidancementioning

confidence: 93%

“…Pathogen/parasite and infection avoidance behaviors of hosts can range from either directly avoiding or removing parasites or pathogen themselves, avoiding conspecifics with signs of infection or avoiding toxins and contaminated areas . Hosts can avoid interacting with individuals with whom they are likely to share parasites, especially if the conspecifics show signs of infection (eg, rats avoid interacting with bacterial treated conspecifics, primates avoid grooming group members infected by orofecally transmitted parasites). If hosts can detect infective and threatening parasites they can avoid them directly (eg, mice self‐bury to avoid biting and bot flies, cattle enter ponds to evade warble flies .…”

Section: Social Cognition Disgust and Pathogen Avoidancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social cognition involves not only successfully assessing other individuals and their behavior and condition (ie, actual or potential infection status and the risk of contamination they present), but also rapidly deciding whether, when, where and how to interact with them . For example mandrills and chimpanzees are able to gauge on the basis of social cues the infection status of their group members avoiding the parasite contaminated feces of neighbors and refraining from grooming infected conspecifics . Similarly, bonobos that are exposed to food contaminated with potentially infected conspecific feces modify their feeding decisions to minimize infection risk …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Social neuroscience of disgust

Kavaliers

Ossenkopp

Choleris

2018

Genes Brain and Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Disgust can be thought of as an affective system that has evolved to detect signs of pathogens, parasite and toxins as well as to stimulate behaviors that reduce the risk of their acquisition. Disgust incorporates social cognitive mechanisms to regulate exposure to and, or anticipate and avoid exposure to pathogens and toxins. Social cognition entails the acquisition of social information about others (ie, social recognition) and from others (ie, social learning). This involves recognizing and assessing other individuals and the pathogen/parasite/contamination/toxin threat they pose and deciding about when and how to interact with and, or avoid them. Social cognition provides a frame-work for examining the expression of disgust and the associated neurobiological mechanisms. Here, we briefly consider the relations between social cognition and pathogen/parasite/toxin avoidance behaviors. We briefly discuss aspects of: (1) the odor mediated social recognition of actual and potentially infected individuals and the impact of parasite/pathogen threat on disgust mate and social partner choice; (2) the roles of "out-groups" (strangers, unfamiliar individuals) and "in-groups" (familiar individuals) in the expression of disgust and pathogen avoidance behaviors; (3) individual and social learning of disgust and empathy for disgust; (4) toxin elicited disgust and anticipatory disgust; (5) the neurobiological mechanisms, and in particular the roles of the nonapeptide, oxytocin and estrogenic mechanism associated with social cognition and the expression of disgust. These findings on the social neuroscience of disgust have a direct bearing on our understanding of the roles of disgust in shaping human and nonhuman social behavior.

show abstract

Mandrills use olfaction to socially avoid parasitized conspecifics

Abstract: Mandrills use olfactory cues from feces of conspecifics to evaluate parasite status and avoid social contact with infectious animals.

Cited by 151 publications

References 36 publications

Disease avoidance, and breeding group age and size condition the dispersal patterns of western lowland gorilla females

Disease avoidance, and breeding group age and size condition the dispersal patterns of western lowland gorilla females

Transmission risk predicts avoidance of infected conspecifics in Trinidadian guppies

Social neuroscience of disgust

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About