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Species Boundaries and the Microbiome
This multi-disciplinary study examines the changing nature and contexts of human contact with great apes and monkeys in equatorial Africa and the health consequences of that contact. Biomedical researchers have scrutinized the nature of “contact”, but social scientists have not. This project brings together historical, anthropological, geographic and microbiological analyses to provide a fuller description of how contact, its nature and significance have changed over time and shaped human health. This social sciences study inserts the complexity and variability of human practice and historical, geographical processes into studies of zoonotic transmission and disease emergence. Focusing on selected diseases that have emerged in part through human-nonhuman primate interactions, our study offers robust multi-disciplinary understanding of past dynamics of disease emergence and new insight into present and future ones. We will set the foundation for a metagenomic study of enterotypes shared by humans and great apes -- of paramount interest because these interactions are the ground zero of potential pathogens entering human bodies. |
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Cross-species disease transmissions pose considerable challenges to global health. The consequence of continuous interactions between pathogens, people, other animals and ecologies, these host shifts from animal reservoirs into human populations have acquired a central importance as a major source of “emerging infectious diseases,” on the rise in recent decades (Lloyd-Smith et al. 2009; Morse 1995). But cross-species transmissions are not unusual in human history: many human pathogens have animal origins. Recent experiences of SARS and avian and H1N1 influenza demonstrate all too compellingly that pathogenic transmissions between animals and human beings, facilitated by the intensified circulation of people, trade, animals, pathogens, and technologies, are a recurrent aspect of human life on earth, often in highly uneven and unpredictable ways (Lakoff 2007; Hinchliffe & Bingham 2008a). Accompanying these alarming reports is “a growing perception…that new biological threats challenge existing ways of understanding and managing collective health and security” (Lakoff & Collier 2008).
Central Africa has been identified as a site of pathogen sharing, infectious disease emergence, and potential threat to global health security (Pederson and Davies 2010; Wald 2008). There, people, great apes and monkeys and other animals (such as bats and birds), pathogens, and forest ecologies have been significant actors in a dynamic evolutionary history that has produced some of the most devastating pathogens to human beings and nonhuman primates alike. Many diseases afflict both people and great apes, including retroviruses (HIV and SIV), Ebola and Marburg viruses, shigella and salmonella, falciparum malaria, yellow fever, simian foamy virus, among others (Prugnolle et al 2011; Liu et al. 2010; Chapman et al. 2005)
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Until now, human-great ape “contact” as a catalyst for host shifts has been addressed primarily by biomedical researchers and primatologists – but not by social scientists (Gessain et al. 2013; Moeller et al. 2012; Locatelli & Peeters 2012; Wolfe et al. 2007). Indeed, a widespread presumption is that disease transmissions between great apes, monkeys and people have escalated with intensified contact over the 20th century – primarily in the form of “anthropogenic change,” including hunting, forest exploitation, population increase, human mobility, and urbanization (Tebit & Arts 2011; Worobey et al. 2008). There is some truth in this assessment. But biomedical research does not have the tools to characterize and evaluate wide-ranging relations between people and nonhuman primates over time. Our preliminary historical and anthropological analyses reveal variegated, non-linear relations of “contact” between people and nonhuman primates in equatorial Africa. In this project, we use the category, “nonhuman primate” or “NHP” to denote gorillas, chimps, bonobos, and various monkeys, largely because these preliminary investigations of “contact” reveal that equatorial inhabitants group these primates together.
The overall goal of this comparative, multi-disciplinary study is to examine the changing nature and contexts of human interaction with NHPs in equatorial African rain forests and to trace the health consequences and public health implications of that contact. Our central premise is that historical, anthropological, and geographic, microbiological and virological analyses will offer a richer, fuller description of how contact, its nature, and significance have changed over time and shaped human and public health.
Central Africa has been identified as a site of pathogen sharing, infectious disease emergence, and potential threat to global health security (Pederson and Davies 2010; Wald 2008). There, people, great apes and monkeys and other animals (such as bats and birds), pathogens, and forest ecologies have been significant actors in a dynamic evolutionary history that has produced some of the most devastating pathogens to human beings and nonhuman primates alike. Many diseases afflict both people and great apes, including retroviruses (HIV and SIV), Ebola and Marburg viruses, shigella and salmonella, falciparum malaria, yellow fever, simian foamy virus, among others (Prugnolle et al 2011; Liu et al. 2010; Chapman et al. 2005)
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Until now, human-great ape “contact” as a catalyst for host shifts has been addressed primarily by biomedical researchers and primatologists – but not by social scientists (Gessain et al. 2013; Moeller et al. 2012; Locatelli & Peeters 2012; Wolfe et al. 2007). Indeed, a widespread presumption is that disease transmissions between great apes, monkeys and people have escalated with intensified contact over the 20th century – primarily in the form of “anthropogenic change,” including hunting, forest exploitation, population increase, human mobility, and urbanization (Tebit & Arts 2011; Worobey et al. 2008). There is some truth in this assessment. But biomedical research does not have the tools to characterize and evaluate wide-ranging relations between people and nonhuman primates over time. Our preliminary historical and anthropological analyses reveal variegated, non-linear relations of “contact” between people and nonhuman primates in equatorial Africa. In this project, we use the category, “nonhuman primate” or “NHP” to denote gorillas, chimps, bonobos, and various monkeys, largely because these preliminary investigations of “contact” reveal that equatorial inhabitants group these primates together.
The overall goal of this comparative, multi-disciplinary study is to examine the changing nature and contexts of human interaction with NHPs in equatorial African rain forests and to trace the health consequences and public health implications of that contact. Our central premise is that historical, anthropological, and geographic, microbiological and virological analyses will offer a richer, fuller description of how contact, its nature, and significance have changed over time and shaped human and public health.