Social status mediates the fitness costs of infection with canine distemper virus in Serengeti spotted hyenas.

ABSTRACT: The extent to which the fitness costs of infection are mediated by key life-history traits such as age or social status is still unclear. Within populations, individual heterogeneity in the outcome of infection is the result of two successive processes; the degree of contact with the pathogen (exposure) and the immune response to infection. In social mammals, because individuals holding high social status typically interact more frequently with group members, they should be more often in contact with infected individuals than those of low social status. However, when access to resources is determined by social status, individuals with a high social status are often better nourished, have a greater opportunity to allocate resources to immune processes and therefore should have a smaller cha

SUBMITTER: Marescot L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7163977 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature