DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Primate Re-infection with Environmentally Transmitted Parasites: a Field Experiment

随着社会环境的变化，生理、生物和社会压力因素的组合正日益影响着人类的健康。这项研究利用尼日利亚的一群红帽白眉猴自然地再次感染了环境传播的病原体，将采用一种新的跨学科方法来理解人类社会如何应对新出现的环境健康威胁。这项研究将提供数据，有助于为当今美国巨大的健康差距问题提供真正和持久的解决方案。这些研究活动将促进美国和撒哈拉以南非洲地区学术机构之间的学术合作。此外，该领域的研究活动将对濒危物种和脆弱栖息地产生直接和间接的好处。将研究成果传播给不同的受众，将提高本研究的转化价值，提高公众的科学素养。最后，由于灵长类动物种群为包括人类社会在内的社会动物提供了很好的模型，因此研究结果将有利于人类和野生动物在全球共同变化的环境中生活的福祉。这项研究将研究灵长类动物的行为、压力、社会和健康状况如何影响宿主在接触新病原体时对感染的易感性。具体来说，在一次驱虫活动后，红帽白眉猴将被跟踪，并测量胃肠道寄生虫再次感染的模式。粪便样本和行为数据将采用集中和随意取样相结合的方法收集，并将用于测量影响暴露和对感染易感性以及随后适应度降低的个体宿主特征。利用高效液相色谱法对胃肠道寄生虫进行实验室分析和应激激素分析，预测个体感染和再感染水平。最后，还将使用UCINET分析来自社会互动的数据，以探索暴露和易感性的社会网络和邻近特征。从非人类灵长类动物身上恢复的寄生虫数据将提交给全球哺乳动物寄生虫数据库（http://www.mammalparasites.org/）。

As our social environment changes, combinations of physical, biological and social stressors are increasingly affecting human health. Using a social group of red-capped mangabeys in Nigeria naturally re-infected with environmentally transmitted pathogens, this research will take a novel and interdisciplinary approach to understanding how human societies respond to emerging environmental health threats. This study will provide data that can help inform real and lasting solutions to the great problem of health disparities in the United States today. These research activities will foster scholarly cooperation between academic institutions in the US and Sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, research activities in the field will have both direct and indirect benefits to endangered species and vulnerable habitats. The dissemination of the results to diverse audiences will enhance translational value of this research and increase public scientific literacy. Finally, because primate populations make good models for social animals, including human societies, the results will benefit the well-being of humans and wildlife living in shared changing environments globally.The study will examine how primate behavior, stress, and social and health status influence susceptibility to infection during host exposure to new pathogens. Specifically, red-capped mangabeys will be followed after a de-worming event, and patterns of re-infection with gastrointestinal parasites will be measured. Fecal samples and behavioral data will be collected using combined focal and ad libitum sampling and will be used to measure individual host characteristics influencing exposure and susceptibility to infection and ensuing reductions in fitness. Laboratory analyses of gastro-intestinal parasites and stress hormone analysis will be conducted using high-performance liquid chromatography to predict individual levels of infection and re-infection. Lastly, data from social interactions will also be analyzed using UCINET to explore social network and proximity characteristics of exposure and susceptibility. Data from parasites recovered from non-human primates will be submitted to the Global Mammal Parasite Database (http://www.mammalparasites.org/ ).