1. Longitudinal monitoring
of parasites in individual
wild primates
20.11.2015
Lectio praecursoria
Tuomas Aivelo (@aivelo)
Institute of Biotechnology; Department of Biosciences, Faculty of Biological
and Environmental Sciences and Doctoral Programme in Wildlife Biology,
University of Helsinki
5. Aims of the thesis
IntroductionMethodsStudyI&IIStudyIIIStudyIVConclusion
⢠Study intestinal parasite
community dynamics within-
host
⢠Design a new method for
identifying parasite
community composition
7. Ranomafana
National Park
⢠Southeastern
Madagascar
⢠Two transects
â Talatakely: inside park,
heavy tourist load,
secondary forest
â Campsite: in peripheral
zone, degraded habitat,
frequented by locals and
students
IntroductionMethodsStudyI&IIStudyIIIStudyIVConclusion
8. ⢠Mark-recapture for 3 years
⢠636 samples from 134 different individuals
IntroductionMethodsStudyI&IIStudyIIIStudyIVConclusion
12. Method
⢠Success rate quite low: only 44% for mouse
lemurs
⢠Difficulties with fecal nematodes
⢠General problems with non-invasive
assessment
IntroductionMethodsStudyI&IIStudyIIIStudyIVConclusion
15. Mouse lemur body
condition and parasites
⢠Better body condition correlates with
â Higher ectoparasite counts
â Higher parasite richness
IntroductionMethodsStudyI&IIStudyIIIStudyIVConclusion
Model n r P
CRT index vs lice score 120 -0.19 0.04
CRT index vs nematode abundance 119 -0.00 0.98
CRT index vs cestode abundance 120 -0.14 0.13
CRT index vs parasite richness 120 -0.19 0.03
n = sample size, r = correlation coefficient of spearman, P = probability
16. In nutshell
⢠While parasite communitiess seem stable
looking at host at population-level sampling,
individual monitoring can reveal wildly
dynamic parasite community
⢠High-throughtput identification of intestinal
nematodes is difficult but possible
IntroductionMethodsStudyI&IIStudyIIIStudyIVConclusion
17. Future directions
⢠Interaction of parasites and
microbiome
⢠Possibilities to track the most
common nematode:
â Do they die during hibernation?
â Is there population structure in
parasites?
⢠Parasite identification straight
from feces
IntroductionMethodsStudyI&IIStudyIIIStudyIVConclusion