集體活動幫助幼年黑猩猩掌握社交能力,，但同時也給傳染病的傳播造成了便利。
孩子們在托兒所和學(xué)校很容易彼此傳染呼吸道疾病,，黑猩猩群體似乎同樣如此：一項最新研究表明,，集體游玩促進了呼吸道感染的傳播。
德國萊比錫馬普進化人類學(xué)研究所的科學(xué)家亞爾馬·屈爾（Hjalmar Kuehl）和彼得·沃爾什（Peter Walsh）主持了一項研究,，對象牙海岸塔伊國家公園（Ta National Park）的兩個黑猩猩群體進行了檢查,。研究結(jié)果顯示，幼年黑猩猩在一起玩耍的時間越久（通常發(fā)生在水果大量成熟的季節(jié),，此時黑猩猩常聚集在一起）,，它們死于呼吸系統(tǒng)疾病的概率就越高。兩三歲的黑猩猩一天中有18%的時間彼此接觸,。這段時間是它們的社會交流高峰期,，可以鞏固群體中所有成員彼此之間的聯(lián)系,。
一旦疾病開始在貪玩的黑猩猩群體中暴發(fā)，所有年齡段的幼年個體都難逃一劫,。染病死去的小黑猩猩的母親迅速進入發(fā)情期,，從而形成了幼兒群體數(shù)量增減的三年周期。屈爾表示,，加上偷獵,、氣候變化及天敵捕食等因素，傳染病造成的幼年黑猩猩死亡對當(dāng)?shù)睾谛尚蓴?shù)量造成了重創(chuàng),，他的研究結(jié)果發(fā)表在2008年6月18日的《公共科學(xué)圖書館·綜合》（PLoS ONE）雜志中,。他還說，近年來只有極少數(shù)幼年黑猩猩能夠成年,，“10只中,，只有4只能活到五歲”。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推薦原始出處：
PLoS ONE 3(6): e2440. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002440
The Price of Play: Self-Organized Infant Mortality Cycles in Chimpanzees
Hjalmar S. Kuehl, Caroline Elzner, Yasmin Moebius, Christophe Boesch, Peter D. Walsh
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
Abstract
Chimpanzees have been used extensively as a model system for laboratory research on infectious diseases. Ironically, we know next to nothing about disease dynamics in wild chimpanzee populations. Here, we analyze long-term demographic and behavioral data from two habituated chimpanzee communities in Ta? National Park, C?te d'Ivoire, where previous work has shown respiratory pathogens to be an important source of infant mortality. In this paper we trace the effect of social connectivity on infant mortality dynamics. We focus on social play which, as the primary context of contact between young chimpanzees, may serve as a key venue for pathogen transmission. Infant abundance and mortality rates at Ta? cycled regularly and in a way that was not well explained in terms of environmental forcing. Rather, infant mortality cycles appeared to self-organize in response to the ontogeny of social play. Each cycle started when the death of multiple infants in an outbreak synchronized the reproductive cycles of their mothers. A pulse of births predictably arrived about twelve months later, with social connectivity increasing over the following two years as the large birth cohort approached the peak of social play. The high social connectivity at this play peak then appeared to facilitate further outbreaks. Our results provide the first evidence that social play has a strong role in determining chimpanzee disease transmission risk and the first record of chimpanzee disease cycles similar to those seen in human children. They also lend more support to the view that infectious diseases are a major threat to the survival of remaining chimpanzee populations.
