Flint Bonnie Fairbanks, Hawley Dana M, Alexander Kathleen A
Department of Biological Sciences Virginia Tech Blacksburg Virginia.
Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation Virginia Tech Blacksburg Virginia; Center for African Resource: Animals Communities, and Land use (CARACAL) Kasane Botswana.
Ecol Evol. 2016 Jul 25;6(16):5932-9. doi: 10.1002/ece3.2343. eCollection 2016 Aug.
Urbanization and other human modifications of the landscape may indirectly affect disease dynamics by altering host behavior in ways that influence pathogen transmission. Few opportunities arise to investigate behaviorally mediated effects of human habitat modification in natural host-pathogen systems, but we provide a potential example of this phenomenon in banded mongooses (Mungos mungo), a social mammal. Our banded mongoose study population in Botswana is endemically infected with a novel Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex pathogen, M. mungi, that primarily invades the mongoose host through the nasal planum and breaks in the skin. In this system, several study troops have access to human garbage sites and other modified landscapes for foraging. Banded mongooses in our study site (N = 4 troops, ~130 individuals) had significantly higher within-troop aggression levels when foraging in garbage compared to other foraging habitats. Second, monthly rates of aggression were a significant predictor of monthly number of injuries in troops. Finally, injured individuals had a 75% incidence of clinical tuberculosis (TB) compared to a 0% incidence in visibly uninjured mongooses during the study period. Our data suggest that mongoose troops that forage in garbage may be at greater risk of acquiring TB by incurring injuries that may allow for pathogen invasion. Our study suggests the need to consider the indirect effects of garbage on behavior and wildlife health when developing waste management approaches in human-modified areas.
城市化及其他人类对景观的改变可能会通过改变宿主行为来间接影响疾病动态，而这种改变会影响病原体传播。在自然宿主-病原体系统中，很少有机会去研究人类栖息地改变对行为的介导作用，但我们提供了一个在群居哺乳动物——条纹獴（Mungos mungo）身上出现这种现象的潜在例子。我们在博茨瓦纳的条纹獴研究种群感染了一种新的结核分枝杆菌复合病原体——蒙氏分枝杆菌（M. mungi），这种病原体主要通过鼻平面和皮肤破损处侵入獴宿主。在这个系统中，有几支研究群体可以进入人类垃圾场和其他经过改造的景观区域觅食。与其他觅食栖息地相比，我们研究地点（4个群体，约130只个体）的条纹獴在垃圾场觅食时群体内部的攻击水平显著更高。其次，每月的攻击率是群体中每月受伤数量的一个重要预测指标。最后，在研究期间，受伤个体的临床结核病（TB）发病率为75%，而明显未受伤的獴发病率为0%。我们的数据表明，在垃圾场觅食的獴群体可能因受伤而更容易感染结核病，因为受伤可能会让病原体有入侵机会。我们的研究表明，在人类改造地区制定废物管理方法时，有必要考虑垃圾对行为和野生动物健康的间接影响。
