Disgust in animals and the application of disease avoidance to wildlife management and conservation

Abstract

Disgust is an adaptive system hypothesized to have evolved to reduce the risk of becoming sick. It is associated with behavioural, cognitive and physiological responses tuned to allow animals to avoid and/or get rid of parasites, pathogens and toxins. Little is known about the mechanisms and outcomes of disease avoidance in wild animals. Furthermore, given the escalation of negative human‐wildlife interactions, the translation of such knowledge into the design of evolutionarily relevant conservation and wildlife management strategies is becoming urgent. Contemporary methods in animal ecology and related fields, using direct (sensory cues) or indirect (remote sensing technologies and machine learning) means, provide a flexible toolbox for testing and applying disgust at individual and collective levels. In this review/perspective paper, we provide an empirical framework for testing the adaptive function of disgust and its associated disease avoidance behaviours across species, from the least to the most social, in different habitats. We predict various trade‐offs to be at play depending on the social system and ecology of the species. We propose five contexts in which disgust‐related avoidance behaviours could be applied, including endangered species rehabilitation, invasive species, crop‐raiding, urban pests and animal tourism. We highlight some of the perspectives and current challenges of testing disgust in the wild. In particular, we recommend future studies to consider together disease, predation and competition risks. We discuss the ethics associated with disgust experiments in the above contexts. Finally, we promote the creation of a database gathering disease avoidance evidence in animals and its applications.

Methods to mitigate human–wildlife conflicts involving common mesopredators: a meta‐analysis

“…We therefore cannot point to an effective chemical to use with mesopredators in general or for a specific species, thus highlighting the need for more research on the subject. Nevertheless, CTA is promoted as a relevant tool to manage endangered species rehabilitation, pest or invasive species, crop‐raiding, and animal tourism (Sarabian et al 2023). Snijders et al (2021) offer guidelines in implementing a CTA program.…”

Striking pay dirt: Contemporary methods for studying animal sociality in the wild

“…Instead, ethical considerations should push researchers to develop their research protocols in view of limiting their impact on wild animals, while still extracting as much information as they can at one time, to avoid the need to re‐expose animals indefinitely. Crucially, the methods presented in this Special Feature will all facilitate this, be it by automatizing feeders (Harrison et al, 2023; Wild et al, 2022), or by making extensive use of remote sensing (He et al, 2022; King & Jensen, 2022; Mannion et al, 2022; Sarabian et al, 2023) thus showing that the study of sociality in the wild is not incompatible with the use of contemporary methods. In fact, such methods should be tested to explore the limits of their use on different species and produce reasonable do‐or‐do not guidelines that can guide the design and implementation of future research.…”

“…While their results do not allow them to make firm conclusions regarding this question in their study groups, they provide the tools to do so across species. Crucially, these tools may also allow investigation of how much of the diet of these wild animals is impacted by humans themselves: in a nutshell, the future might tell us how much our wild subjects have remained wild in their foods, despite being confronted with increasingly encroaching humans (Gruber et al, 2019;McLennan & Hockings, 2014). Gräßle et al ( 2023) take a radically different approach and also tackle the 'ecological validity' of their wild subjects, but this time, by looking at their brains.…”

Genetic variation in trophic avoidance shows fruit flies are generally attracted to bacterial pathogens

“…Investigating the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to within-population variation in avoidance behaviours is important to understand its ecological and evolutionary consequences [2,16,17]. For instance, foraging and feeding are essential components of host ecology and are crucial for organismal reproduction and fitness, but they also provide a major route of pathogen transmission [18][19][20][21][22]. Characterising variability in host behaviours that contribute to individual heterogeneity in pathogen acquisition and spread is therefore a major focus of disease ecology and epidemiology [17,18,[23][24][25].…”

“…For instance, foraging and feeding are essential components of host ecology and are crucial for organismal reproduction and fitness, but they also provide a major route of pathogen transmission [18][19][20][21][22]. Characterising variability in host behaviours that contribute to individual heterogeneity in pathogen acquisition and spread is therefore a major focus of disease ecology and epidemiology [17,18,[23][24][25].…”