Hygienic tendencies correlate with low geohelminth infection in free-ranging macaques.

ABSTRACT: Parasites are ubiquitous in nature and can be costly to animal fitness, so hosts have evolved behavioural counter-strategies to mitigate infection risk. We investigated feeding-related infection-avoidance strategies in Japanese macaques via field-experimentation and observation. We first examined risk sensitivity during foraging tasks involving faecally contaminated or debris-covered food items, and then investigated individual tendencies to manipulate food items during natural foraging bouts. We concurrently monitored geohelminth infection in all subjects. We ran a principal component analysis on the observational/experimental data to generate a hygienic index across individuals and found that hygienic tendencies towards faeces avoidance and food manipulation correlated negatively with ge

SUBMITTER: Sarabian C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4685541 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature