Thatcher Harriet R, Downs Colleen T, Koyama Nicola F
School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Byrom St, Liverpool, L3 3AF, UK.
School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg Campus, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Ecohealth. 2018 Sep;15(3):676-681. doi: 10.1007/s10393-018-1349-y. Epub 2018 Aug 8.
Vervet monkeys, Chlorocebus pygerythrus, thrive in urban areas of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and present a suitable model to assess parasitic load as a measure of anthropogenic disturbance, such as urbanization. We collected vervet monkey faecal samples from four study sites representing a gradient of land use and urbanization. We assessed faecal parasites using the faecal flotation method calculating eggs per gram and parasite richness. Overall, the more urban vervet monkey populations had a significantly higher parasite richness and abundance. Our study shows the applicability of using parasite load to measure the effect of urbanization on wildlife.
绿猴（Chlorocebus pygerythrus）在南非夸祖鲁 - 纳塔尔省的城市地区繁衍生息，是评估寄生虫负荷作为衡量城市化等人为干扰指标的合适模型。我们从四个代表土地利用和城市化梯度的研究地点收集了绿猴粪便样本。我们使用粪便浮选法评估粪便寄生虫，计算每克粪便中的虫卵数和寄生虫丰富度。总体而言，城市化程度越高的绿猴种群，其寄生虫丰富度和数量显著越高。我们的研究表明，利用寄生虫负荷来衡量城市化对野生动物的影响是可行的。
