Cargando…

Divergent strategies in faeces avoidance between two cercopithecoid primates

Parasites constitute a major selective pressure which has shaped animal behaviour through evolutionary time. One adaption to parasites consists of recognizing and avoiding substrates or cues that indicate their presence. Among substrates harbouring infectious agents, faeces are known to elicit avoid...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Sarabian, Cécile, Ngoubangoye, Barthélémy, MacIntosh, Andrew J. J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7137971/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32269806
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191861
_version_ 1783518513417158656
author Sarabian, Cécile
Ngoubangoye, Barthélémy
MacIntosh, Andrew J. J.
author_facet Sarabian, Cécile
Ngoubangoye, Barthélémy
MacIntosh, Andrew J. J.
author_sort Sarabian, Cécile
collection PubMed
description Parasites constitute a major selective pressure which has shaped animal behaviour through evolutionary time. One adaption to parasites consists of recognizing and avoiding substrates or cues that indicate their presence. Among substrates harbouring infectious agents, faeces are known to elicit avoidance behaviour in numerous animal species. However, the function and mechanisms of faeces avoidance in non-human primates has been largely overlooked by scientists. In this study, we used an experimental approach to investigate whether aversion to faeces in a foraging context is mediated by visual and olfactory cues in two cercopithecoid primates: mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) and long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis). Visual and olfactory cues of faeces elicited lower food consumption rates in mandrills and higher food manipulation rates in long-tailed macaques. Both results support the infection-avoidance hypothesis and confirm similar tendencies observed in other primate species. More studies are now needed to investigate the divergence of avoidance strategies observed in non-human primates regarding food contamination.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7137971
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher The Royal Society
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-71379712020-04-08 Divergent strategies in faeces avoidance between two cercopithecoid primates Sarabian, Cécile Ngoubangoye, Barthélémy MacIntosh, Andrew J. J. R Soc Open Sci Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Parasites constitute a major selective pressure which has shaped animal behaviour through evolutionary time. One adaption to parasites consists of recognizing and avoiding substrates or cues that indicate their presence. Among substrates harbouring infectious agents, faeces are known to elicit avoidance behaviour in numerous animal species. However, the function and mechanisms of faeces avoidance in non-human primates has been largely overlooked by scientists. In this study, we used an experimental approach to investigate whether aversion to faeces in a foraging context is mediated by visual and olfactory cues in two cercopithecoid primates: mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) and long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis). Visual and olfactory cues of faeces elicited lower food consumption rates in mandrills and higher food manipulation rates in long-tailed macaques. Both results support the infection-avoidance hypothesis and confirm similar tendencies observed in other primate species. More studies are now needed to investigate the divergence of avoidance strategies observed in non-human primates regarding food contamination. The Royal Society 2020-03-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7137971/ /pubmed/32269806 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191861 Text en © 2020 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Organismal and Evolutionary Biology
Sarabian, Cécile
Ngoubangoye, Barthélémy
MacIntosh, Andrew J. J.
Divergent strategies in faeces avoidance between two cercopithecoid primates
title Divergent strategies in faeces avoidance between two cercopithecoid primates
title_full Divergent strategies in faeces avoidance between two cercopithecoid primates
title_fullStr Divergent strategies in faeces avoidance between two cercopithecoid primates
title_full_unstemmed Divergent strategies in faeces avoidance between two cercopithecoid primates
title_short Divergent strategies in faeces avoidance between two cercopithecoid primates
title_sort divergent strategies in faeces avoidance between two cercopithecoid primates
topic Organismal and Evolutionary Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7137971/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32269806
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191861
work_keys_str_mv AT sarabiancecile divergentstrategiesinfaecesavoidancebetweentwocercopithecoidprimates
AT ngoubangoyebarthelemy divergentstrategiesinfaecesavoidancebetweentwocercopithecoidprimates
AT macintoshandrewjj divergentstrategiesinfaecesavoidancebetweentwocercopithecoidprimates