Infectious disease and sickness behaviour: tumour progression affects interaction patterns and social network structure in wild Tasmanian devils.

ABSTRACT: Infectious diseases, including transmissible cancers, can have a broad range of impacts on host behaviour, particularly in the latter stages of disease progression. However, the difficulty of early diagnoses makes the study of behavioural influences of disease in wild animals a challenging task. Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) are affected by a transmissible cancer, devil facial tumour disease (DFTD), in which tumours are externally visible as they progress. Using telemetry and mark-recapture datasets, we quantify the impacts of cancer progression on the behaviour of wild devils by assessing how interaction patterns within the social network of a population change with increasing tumour load. The progression of DFTD negatively influences devils' likelihood of interaction wit

SUBMITTER: Hamilton DG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7739934 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature