Infant play drives chimpanzee respiratory disease cyclesJune 18, 2008The signature boom-bust cycling of childhood respiratory diseases was long attributed to environmental cycling. However, the effect of school holidays on rates of social contact amongst children is increasingly seen as another major driver. New research on chimpanzees suggests that this effect of social connectivity on disease cycling may long predate attendance of children at schools, with chimpanzee infant mortality rates cycling in phase with rates of social play amongst infants. Published in the journal PLoS ONE, the new study examined more than two decades of infant mortality data from two chimpanzee communities in the Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire. Previous work by the authors, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig Germany, had shown that chimpanzees at the site were killed by respiratory viruses repeatedly introduced from humans. The new study found evidence for mortality cycling at two distinct intervals. On an annual scale, outbreak deaths peaked during the period of high food availability, when chimpanzees are most gregarious. However, infant mortality also cycled on a roughly three year period. "What is fascinating about this three year cycle is that it appeared to be self-organized," said Hjalmar Kuehl, the lead author on the paper. "That is, the cycles were not forced by some extrinsic environmental cycle but emerged naturally from the demography, developmental ontogeny, and social behavior of chimpanzees." Climate cycles such as those caused by the El Nino Southern Oscillation were not good predictors of infant mortality patterns. The key to the three year cycle was the ontogeny of playfulness in chimpanzee infants. Chimpanzee newborns are not very social but infants become increasingly playful with age, reaching a peak in social play at about two years old. Thus, each cycle started when an outbreak killed a group of infants, thereby synchronizing the reproductive cycles of their mothers. One year later, a large cohort of infants was born which, another two years further on, matured to peak play age. These highly playful infants produced a social bridge between community members who might otherwise engage in little direct interaction: ideal conditions for community-wide propagation of a new outbreak. The study provides a nice link between population dynamics and the behavioral issues traditionally studied by primatologists", said Yasmin Moebius, who did the analysis of play ontogeny. It also has important implications for the conservation of chimpanzees, which are classed as Endangered by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), as well as Critically Endangered gorillas. Ape tourism has been heralded as a means of providing monetary value to governments and local communities. However, close approach to habituated gorillas and chimpanzees by tourists poses a serious disease transmission threat. "Our analyses not only tell us that disease transmission from tourists and researchers is a major problem", said Peter Walsh, another coauthor. "They tell us when the risk is greatest and, consequently, when measures such as vaccination would be most effective." "We need to be more proactive about taking steps to minimize the disease transmission risk posed by both tourism and research," added Christophe Boesch, a coauthor who initiated the Tai Chimpanzee project in 1979. "We also need to expand our vision to include disease management measures such as vaccination as important parts of the ape conservation puzzle." Public Library of Science |
|||||||||||||||||||||
| Related Infant Mortality Current Events and Infant Mortality News Articles UNC study: Insecticide-treated bed nets reduce infant deaths in Democratic Republic of Congo Giving insecticide-treated bed nets to nearly 18,000 mothers at prenatal clinics in the Democratic Republic of Congo prevented an estimated 414 infant deaths from malaria, a study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers concludes. ISU researchers find possible treatment for Spinal Muscular Atrophy Spinal Muscular Atrophy is the second-leading cause of infant mortality in the world. Study reveals conflict between doctors, midwives over homebirth Two Oregon State University researchers have uncovered a pattern of distrust - and sometimes outright antagonism - among physicians at hospitals and midwives who are transporting their home-birth clients to the hospital because of complications. Maternal smoking may alter the arousal process of infants, increasing their risk for SIDS A study in the April 1 issue of the journal SLEEP shows that maternal smoking is associated with an impaired infant arousal process that may increase the risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The authors suggest that maternal smoking has replaced stomach sleeping as the greatest modifiable risk factor for SIDS. Studies link maternity leave with fewer C-sections and increased breastfeeding Two new studies led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, suggest that taking maternity leave before and after the birth of a baby is a good investment in terms of health benefits for both mothers and newborns. Patient-derived induced stem cells retain disease traits hen neurons started dying in Clive Svendsen's lab dishes, he couldn't have been more pleased. The dying cells - the same type lost in patients with the devastating neurological disease spinal muscular atrophy - confirmed that the University of Wisconsin-Madison stem cell biologist had recreated the hallmarks of a genetic disorder in the lab, using stem cells derived from a patient. Depression during pregnancy can double risk of preterm delivery Depressed pregnant women have twice the risk of preterm delivery than pregnant women with no symptoms of depression, according to a new study by the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. Post-term pregnancies risk infant's life and health, UCSF studies show Infants born more than one week past their due dates have a higher risk of both impaired health and death, according to two new studies by authors from the University of California's San Francisco and Berkeley campuses. Alcohol consumption can cause too much cell death, fetal abnormalities The initial signs of fetal alcohol syndrome are slight but classic: facial malformations such as a flat and high upper lip, small eye openings and a short nose. Stroke and SIDS in Alaska topics of neuroscience conference University of Alaska Fairbanks neuroscientists studying stroke and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome will present their research findings at the 7th Conference of the Specialized Neuroscience Research Programs in New York Aug. 19-22, 2008. More Infant Mortality Current Events and Infant Mortality News Articles |
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||