Browsing by Subject "Primates"

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    30 Days in the life: daily nutrient balancing in a wild chacma baboon
    (Public Library of Science, 2013) Johnson, Caley A; Raubenheimer, David; Rothman, Jessica M; Clarke, David; Swedell, Larissa
    For most animals, the ability to regulate intake of specific nutrients is vital to fitness. Recent studies have demonstrated nutrient regulation in nonhuman primates over periods of one observation day, though studies of humans indicate that such regulation extends to longer time frames. Little is known about longer-term regulation in nonhuman primates, however, due to the challenges of multiple-day focal follows. Here we present the first detailed study of nutrient intake across multiple days in a wild nonhuman primate. We conducted 30 consecutive all day follows on one female chacma baboon ( Papio hamadryas ursinus ) in the Cape Peninsula of South Africa. We documented dietary composition, compared the nutritional contribution of natural and human-derived foods to the diet, and quantified nutrient intake using the geometric framework of nutrition. Our focus on a single subject over consecutive days allowed us to examine daily dietary regulation within an individual over time. While the amounts varied daily, our subject maintained a strikingly consistent balance of protein to non-protein (fat and carbohydrate) energy across the month. Human-derived foods, while contributing a minority of the diet, were higher in fat and lower in fiber than naturally-derived foods. Our results demonstrate nutrient regulation on a daily basis in our subject, and demonstrate that she was able to maintain a diet with a constant proportional protein content despite wide variation in the composition of component foods. From a methodological perspective, the results of this study suggest that nutrient intake is best estimated over at least an entire day, with longer-term regulatory patterns (e.g., during development and reproduction) possibly requiring even longer sampling. From a management and conservation perspective, it is notable that nearly half the subject's daily energy intake derived from exotic foods, including those currently being eradicated from the study area for replacement by indigenous vegetation.
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    Phylogenetic Evidence That Two Distinct Trichuris Genotypes Infect both Humans and Non-Human Primates
    (Public Library of Science, 2012) Ravasi, Damiana F.; O’Riain, Mannus J.; Davids, Faezah; Illing, Nicola
    Although there has been extensive debate about whether Trichuris suis and Trichuris trichiura are separate species, only one species of the whipworm T. trichiura has been considered to infect humans and non-human primates. In order to investigate potential cross infection of Trichuris sp. between baboons and humans in the Cape Peninsula, South Africa, we sequenced the ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 region of adult Trichuris sp. worms isolated from five baboons from three different troops, namely the Cape Peninsula troop, Groot Olifantsbos troop and Da Gama Park troop. This region was also sequenced from T. trichiura isolated from a human patient from central Africa (Cameroon) for comparison. By combining this dataset with Genbank records for Trichuris isolated from other humans, non-human primates and pigs from several different countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa, we confirmed the identification of two distinct Trichuris genotypes that infect primates. Trichuris sp. isolated from the Peninsula baboons fell into two distinct clades that were found to also infect human patients from Cameroon, Uganda and Jamaica (named the CP-GOB clade) and China, Thailand, the Czech Republic, and Uganda (named the DG clade), respectively. The divergence of these Trichuris clades is ancient and precedes the diversification of T. suis which clustered closely to the CP-GOB clade. The identification of two distinct Trichuris genotypes infecting both humans and non-human primates is important for the ongoing treatment of Trichuris which is estimated to infect 600 million people worldwide. Currently baboons in the Cape Peninsula, which visit urban areas, provide a constant risk of infection to local communities. A reduction in spatial overlap between humans and baboons is thus an important measure to reduce both cross-transmission and zoonoses of helminthes in Southern Africa.