ArticleThe Journal of animal ecology2019
Costs and drivers of helminth parasite infection in wild female baboons.
Article in The Journal of animal ecology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Spotlighting zoonotic strongyloidiasis: a semi-systematic review of threadworms within baboons highlights opportunities for human infections.Infectious diseases of poverty · 2026Review
- Epidemiology and risk factors for endoparasite infection in subtropical feral cattle in Hong Kong.International journal for parasitology. Parasites and wildlife · 2025Article
- Eukaryotic composition across seasons and social groups in the gut microbiota of wild baboons.Animal microbiome · 2025Article
- Effects of gastrointestinal parasites on fecal glucocorticoids and behaviour in vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus).PloS one · 2025Article
- Article
- Divergent age-related changes in parasite infection occur independently of behaviour and demography in a wild ungulate.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Gastrointestinal parasite prevalence, diversity and association in free-ranging Chacma baboon troops in a semi-arid savanna ecosystem of Zimbabwe.International journal for parasitology. Parasites and wildlife · 2024Article
- Temporal dynamics in gastrointestinal helminth infections of sympatric mouse lemur species (International journal for parasitology. Parasites and wildlife · 2024Article
- Helminth diversity and seasonality of Angiostrongylus cantonensis in hedgehogs from Mallorca.Parasite (Paris, France) · 2024Article
- Gastrointestinal parasites in captive olive baboons in a UK safari park.Parasitology · 2023Article
- COVID-19 morbidity in lower versus higher income populations underscores the need to restore lost biodiversity of eukaryotic symbionts.iScience · 2023Review
- Mother-to-daughter transmission of hygienic anti-parasite behaviour in mandrills.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Diversity of gastrointestinal parasites in sympatric mammals in Moukalaba-Doudou National Park, Gabon.Veterinary world · 2021Article
- Evidence of MHC class I and II influencing viral and helminth infection via the microbiome in a non-human primate.PLoS pathogens · 2021Article
- Potentially zoonotic gastrointestinal nematodes co-infecting free ranging non-human primates in Kenyan urban centres.Veterinary medicine and science · 2021Article
- Predictors of helminth parasite infection in female chacma baboons (International journal for parasitology. Parasites and wildlife · 2021Article
- Faecal parasites increase with age but not reproductive effort in wild female chimpanzees.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Living with liver flukes: Does migration matter?International journal for parasitology. Parasites and wildlife · 2020Article
- Loss of protozoan and metazoan intestinal symbiont biodiversity in wild primates living in unprotected forests.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Strongylid infection varies with age, sex, movement and social factors in wild African elephants.Parasitology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Helminth parasites can have wide-ranging, detrimental effects on host reproduction and survival. These effects are best documented in humans and domestic animals, while only a few studies in wild mammals have identified both the forces that drive helminth infection risk and their costs to individual fitness. Working in a well-studied population of wild baboons (Papio cynocephalus) in the Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya, we pursued two goals, to (a) examine the costs of helminth infections in terms of female fertility and glucocorticoid hormone levels and (b) test how processes operating at multiple scales-from individual hosts to social groups and the population at large-work together to predict variation in female infection risk. To accomplish these goals, we measured helminth parasite burdens in 745 faecal samples collected over 5 years from 122 female baboons. We combine these data with detailed observations of host environments, social behaviours, hormone levels and interbirth intervals (IBIs). We found that helminths are costly to female fertility: females infected with more diverse parasite communities (i.e., higher parasite richness) exhibited longer IBIs than females infected by fewer parasite taxa. We also found that females exhibiting high Trichuris trichiura egg counts also had high glucocorticoid levels. Female infection risk was best predicted by factors at the host, social group and population level: females facing the highest risk were old, socially isolated, living in dry conditions and infected with other helminths. Our results provide an unusually holistic understanding of the factors that contribute to inter-individual differences in parasite infection, and they contribute to just a handful of studies linking helminths to host fitness in wild mammals.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.