Impact of joint interactions with humans and social interactions with conspecifics on the risk of zooanthroponotic outbreaks among wildlife populations

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Krishna N Balasubramaniam, Anglia Ruskin University; Nalina Aiempichitkijkarn, University of California at Davis; Stefano SK Kaburu, University of Wolverhampton; Pascal R Marty, University of California at Davis; Brianne Beisner, Emory University; Eliza Bliss-Moreau, University of California at Davis; Malgorzata E Arlet, Adam Mickiewicz University; Edward Atwill, University of California at Davis; Brenda McCowen, University of California at Davis
• Language: English
• Date: 2022-07-08
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © The Author(s) 2022
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-15713-6
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Scientific Reports
• Volume: 12
• Keywords: Conservation biology; Behavioural ecology; Biological anthropology; Urban ecology; Infectious diseases; Macroecology; Social evolution; Ecological epidemiology; Microbial ecology; Evolutionary ecology
• Research Categories: Biology, General

Abstract

Pandemics caused by pathogens that originate in wildlife highlight the importance of understanding the behavioral ecology of disease outbreaks at human–wildlife interfaces. Specifically, the relative effects of human–wildlife and wildlife-wildlife interactions on disease outbreaks among wildlife populations in urban and peri-urban environments remain unclear. We used social network analysis and epidemiological Susceptible-Infected-Recovered models to simulate zooanthroponotic outbreaks, through wild animals’ joint propensities to co-interact with humans, and their social grooming of conspecifics. On 10 groups of macaques (Macaca spp.) in peri-urban environments in Asia, we collected behavioral data using event sampling of human–macaque interactions within the same time and space, and focal sampling of macaques’ social interactions with conspecifics and overall anthropogenic exposure. Model-predicted outbreak sizes were related to structural features of macaques’ networks. For all three species, and for both anthropogenic (co-interactions) and social (grooming) contexts, outbreak sizes were positively correlated to the network centrality of first-infected macaques. Across host species and contexts, the above effects were stronger through macaques’ human co-interaction networks than through their grooming networks, particularly for rhesus and bonnet macaques. Long-tailed macaques appeared to show intraspecific variation in these effects. Our findings suggest that among wildlife in anthropogenically-impacted environments, the structure of their aggregations around anthropogenic factors makes them more vulnerable to zooanthroponotic outbreaks than their social structure. The global features of these networks that influence disease outbreaks, and their underlying socio-ecological covariates, need further investigation. Animals that consistently interact with both humans and their conspecifics are important targets for disease control.