Abstract
Increasing population density can increase infectious disease risk and thus reduce population growth and size. Host-parasite interactions of threatened animals that remain in small protected forest fragments therefore need to be monitored carefully. Due to extreme conservation efforts, the mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) population in the 450-km2 Virunga Massif has more than doubled since 1973, reaching 604 individuals in 2016. To better understand changes in the transmission risks of soil-borne and other enteric pathogens for mountain gorillas, we determined defecation outputs of different age-sex classes and the diurnal variation in feces deposition. We weighed 399 wet fecal samples deposited at nest sites and on trails between nest sites by gorillas of varying age and sex, determined by lobe diameter, from five social groups (n = 58 gorillas) that range in the Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. We found increasing daily average defecation outputs with increasing age-sex class (infants, 435 g; juveniles, 1346 g; medium-sized gorillas, 2446 g; silverbacks, 3609 g). Gorillas deposited two– to threefold the amount of feces at nest sites compared to on trails, suggesting that nest sites may function as hotspots for enteric pathogen infections through direct contact or when gorillas ingest foods contaminated with infectious larvae during site revisits in intervals matching the maturation period of environmentally transmitted gastrointestinal parasites. In combination with ranging and demographic data, these findings will enable the modeling of spatiotemporal variation in soil contamination and infectious disease risk for Virunga gorillas as their population density continues to increase.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank the Rwandan Development Board and the VNP authorities for supporting this project. We are very grateful to Cleveland Metroparks Zoo for funding this B.Sc. research. David Modry was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (18-24345S). We are also indebted to Kristen Lukas and Austin Leeds at CMZ for their dedication in providing training in essential research skills to B.Sc. students from the University of Rwanda that helps them to successfully complete their theses. We are also grateful to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund field teams and Pacifique Nshimiyimana for their tireless assistance during the data collection. We are also grateful to Klara Petrzlkova for her very constructive input during the study, Robin Morrison for proofreading the manuscript, and to the two anonymous reviewers who helped to significantly improve the manuscript.
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Funding for this study was provided by Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.
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ES lead the project at all stages, including the study design, data collection, analysis, and manuscript development. WE and AN supervised all the stages of the project, including the project design, data analysis, and manuscript development. WE also trained ES in field data collection. DM and JS contributed to the conception of the project, provided guidance on the development of the methods and data analysis. AM and RM also contributed to the conception and implementation of the project. All the authors commented on the previous versions of the manuscript.
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Sinayitutse, E., Modry, D., Slapeta, J. et al. Daily defecation outputs of mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) in the Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. Primates 62, 311–320 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-020-00874-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-020-00874-7