The relationship between grooming behavior and parasite infections in wild Tibetan macaques
Social grooming is the most extensive and frequent social interaction pattern within non-human primates,while accumulating evidence points that social grooming is not a low-cost investment given the potential health risks as-sociated with parasite infection during the grooming process.This study aimed to investigate the potential health costs of social grooming by estimating the associations between the amount of social grooming given and the type and infection risk of parasites in wild Tibetan macaques(Macaca thibetana)in MT.Huangshan,Anhui Province,China.Our results showed that a total of 11 species of parasites were found,the highest risk of infection is the Capillaria spp./Trichostron-gylus spp.and Balantidium coli(93％),followed by the Trichuris trichura(54％).As the durations of social grooming initiated increased,the higher the risk of infection with Balantidium coli,while the risk of infection with Ascaris spp.de-creased with the increase in social grooming received.In addition,we noted that the risk of infection with Balantidium coli also showed an increasing tendency with the node strength increase in social grooming networks.In general,our re-sults provided empirical evidence for the risk of parasite infections in wild Tibetan macaques,while also offering a new perspective on the trade-off between the benefits and costs of social grooming in non-human primate societies.
万方数据
维普
