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Wild bumblebees use both absolute and relative evaluation when foraging

Foraging theory assumes that animals assess value based on objective payoffs, however, animals often evaluate rewards comparatively, forming expectations based on recent experience. This form of evaluation may be particularly relevant for nectar foragers such as bumblebees, where individuals can visit thousands of flowers daily that vary in nectar quality. While many animals, including bees, demonstrate reference-based evaluation in experimental contexts, it is unclear whether this occurs in the wild. Here we asked how daily experience with wildflower nectar influenced wild bumblebees' reward evaluation. We measured the daily nectar concentration of bee-visited wildflowers (Penstemon spp.), before presenting foragers with conspecific flowers filled with a range of artificial nectar concentrations. We recorded bees' acceptance of artificial nectar, probability of subsequent visits to flowers on the same plant, and residence time. While bees had a minimum threshold of nectar acceptability that was unaffected by experience, when there was higher-concentration environmental nectar, they were less likely to accept lower-quality rewards on manipulated plants. Bees also visited more flowers and stayed longer on plants with higher-concentration nectar. This study shows evidence for both absolute and reference-based evaluation in wild bees and points towards differences between bees' behavior in lab- and wild-foraging contexts.

Individual and temporal variation in movement patterns of wild alpine reindeer and implications for disease management

Animal behaviour is important for prevalence and outbreaks of infectious diseases, for instance by affecting individual interactions. Increasing the knowledge of individual movement patterns can provide better insight into disease prevalence and spread, helping to target efforts to minimise disease outbreaks. Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal prion disease affecting cervids. CWD is transmitted by animal-to-animal contact and through the environment, thus individual variation in space use and social associations may influence disease transmission patterns and infection risk. CWD was detected in Norwegian alpine reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) in 2016, and eradication of the infected population was implemented. A 3:1 infection rate between males and females suggests sex-specific behavioural drivers. We utilised an extensive individual-based dataset of 149 GPS-marked wild reindeer to investigate individual variation in movement patterns in terms of inter- and intra-annual home range size and site fidelity, and variation in home range overlap and distances between individuals. We aimed to identify patterns which could indicate higher potential disease risk. Females had larger annual and seasonal home ranges than males, except during calving and rut. Greater home range overlaps and shorter between-individual distances were found between same-sex individuals than different-sex individuals, except during the rut. Accordingly, the rut season stands out with greater male home ranges, greater home range overlap and shorter distances between males and between males and females, which could indicate that this season is critical for disease transmission. Measures to prevent disease spread should lower contact rates, e.g., by reducing the abundance of adult males before they mix with other groups during the rut. This can be achieved for instance by allowing earlier hunt on adult males when they are distributed in small male groups, to reduce the transmission risk and keep disturbance of other individuals low.

Data from: Severe enamel defects in wild Japanese macaques

Plane-form enamel hypoplasia (PFEH) is a severe dental defect in which large areas of the crown are devoid of enamel. This condition is rare in humans and even rarer in wild primates. The etiology of PFEH has been linked to exposure to severe disease, malnutrition, environmental toxins, and associated with systemic conditions. In this study, we examined the prevalence of enamel hypoplasia in several populations of wild Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) with the aim of providing context for severe defects observed in macaques from Yakushima Island. We found that 10 of 21 individuals (48%) from Yakushima Island displayed uniform and significant PFEH; all 10 specimens were from two adjacent locations in the south of the island. In contrast, macaques from other islands and from mainland Japan have low prevalence of the more common types of enamel hypoplasia and none exhibit PFEH. In Yakushima macaques, every tooth type was affected to varying degrees except for first molars and primary teeth, and the mineral content of the remaining enamel in teeth with PFEH was normal (i.e., no hypo- or hyper mineralization). The aetiology of PFEH might be linked to extreme weather events or high rates of environmental fluoride causing enamel breakdown. However, given that the affected individuals underwent dental development during a period of substantial human-related habitat change, an anthropogenic related etiology seems most likely. Further research on living primate populations is needed to better understand the causes of PFEH in wild primates.

Data from: Exploring deep learning techniques for wild animal behaviour classification using animal-borne accelerometers

1: Machine learning-based behaviour classification using acceleration data is a powerful tool in bio-logging research. Deep learning architectures such as convolutional neural networks (CNN), long short-term memory (LSTM), and self-attention mechanism as well as related training techniques have been extensively studied in human activity recognition. However, they have rarely been used in wild animal studies. The main challenges of acceleration-based wild animal behaviour classification include data shortages, class imbalance problems, various types of noise in data due to differences in individual behaviour and where the loggers were attached, and complexity in data due to complex animal-specific behaviours, which may have limited the application of deep learning techniques in this area. 2: To overcome these challenges, we explored the effectiveness of techniques for efficient model training: data augmentation, manifold mixup, and pre-training of deep learning models with unlabelled data, using datasets from two species of wild seabirds and state-of-the-art deep learning model architectures. 3: Data augmentation improved the overall model performance when one of various techniques (none, scaling, jittering, permutation, time-warping, and rotation) was randomly applied to each data during mini-batch training. Manifold mixup also improved model performance, but not as much as random data augmentation. Pre-training with unlabelled data did not improve model performance. The state-of-the-art deep learning models, including a model consisting of four CNN layers, an LSTM layer, and a multi-head attention layer, as well as its modified version with shortcut connection, showed better performance among other comparative models. Using only raw acceleration data as inputs, these models outperformed classic machine learning approaches that used 119 handcrafted features. 4: Our experiments showed that deep learning techniques are promising for acceleration-based behaviour classification of wild animals and highlighted some challenges (e.g. effective use of unlabelled data). There is scope for greater exploration of deep learning techniques in wild animal studies (e.g. advanced data augmentation, multimodal sensor data use, transfer learning, and self-supervised learning). We hope that this study will stimulate the development of deep learning techniques for wild animal behaviour classification using time-series sensor data. This abstract is cited from the original article "Exploring deep learning techniques for wild animal behaviour classification using animal-borne accelerometers" in Methods in Ecology and Evolution (Otsuka et al., 2024). Please see README for the details of the datasets.

Data from: Chromosome-scale genome assembly of bread wheat's wild relative Triticum timopheevii

Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is one of the most important food crops with an urgent need for increase in its production to feed the growing world. Wheat's wild relative species provide a hugely untapped reservoir of genetic diversity for wheat improvement. Triticum timopheevii (2n = 4x = 28) is a tetraploid wheat wild relative species containing the At and G genomes that has been exploited in many wheat pre-breeding programmes over the last few decades. In this study, we report the generation of a chromosome-scale reference genome assembly of T. timopheevii accession PI 94760 based on PacBio HiFi reads and chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C). The total assembly size was 9.35 Gb with a contig N50 of 42.4 Mb. In total, 166,325 gene models were predicted. Comparative genome analysis confirmed previously known chromosomal translocations and indicated new chromosome rearrangements. Analysis of the genomic distribution of DNA methylation showed that the G genome had on average more methylated bases than the At genome. The G genome was also more closely related to the S genome of Aegilops speltoides than to the B genome of hexaploid or tetraploid wheat. In summary, the T. timopheevii genome assembly provides a valuable resource for genome-informed discovery and cloning of agronomically important genes for future food security.

Drosophila melanogaster wounding in the wild

Wounding occurs across multicellular organisms, and it can result from intra- and interspecific interactions. Depending upon the severity, wounds could affect host mobility and reproduction, with ecological consequences, e.g., on competitive interactions and predator-prey dynamics. Wounds are also entry points for pathogens, and infections may in turn reduce host fitness. An immune response is activated upon wounding, which results in the deposition of the brown-black pigment melanin in insects. Despite the abundance of immunity studies in the lab and the potential ecological and evolutionary implications of wounding, the prevalence of wounding in wild-collected insects is rarely systematically explored. Our aim was to investigate the prevalence and potential causes of wounds in a wild-collected insect. For this we chose flies from the Drosophilidae family, a group of abundant insects in the wild that includes the frequently used lab model Drosophila melanogaster. From systematic collections of female and male flies over three seasons and locations, we found that 31% of D. melanogaster were wounded or damaged in some way. The abdomen was more frequently wounded than other body parts, and females were more likely to have melanised patches particularly on the ventral abdomen, compared to males. Encapsulated parasitoid egg frequency was just under ten percent. Moreover, just under one percent of Drosophilidae species had mites attached to their body, the majority of which also caused wounds. Wounding is prevalent in D. melanogaster, and as such it is likely to exert selection pressure on host immunity for two reasons: on a rapid and efficient wound repair, and on responding efficiently to opportunistic infections. Wounding is thus expected to be an important driver of immune system evolution and to affect individual fitness and population dynamics.

Raw GPS data of wild and farmed mallards in southern Sweden

Releasing farmed mallards into the wild is a common practice in wildlife management worldwide, involving millions of birds annually, and is mainly carried out to increase hunting opportunities. Ringing and previous research show that released mallards have low survival also outside the hunting season, and that survivors may compromise migration habits, morphology, and adaptations of the wild population. Detailed local movements of released mallards have not been studied before, despite the importance of spatiotemporal patterns for understanding the impact of releases and their utility for hunting. We studied local movements in August-October of 11 wild and 44 released mallards caught in the same wetland in southern Sweden and provided with GPS tags. Wild mallards moved longer distances than farmed, over the whole diel cycle as well as during three out of four separate periods of the day (dawn, day, and dusk). Mallards of both origins moved the longest distances during dusk and dawn, and the shortest during night. Males and females did not differ significantly in distance moved, regardless of origin (wild versus farmed). Our study demonstrates large differences in spatiotemporal movement patterns between wild and farmed mallards. The typical day of wild mallards included movements between wetlands in the landscape, likely to foraging sites known from previous experience. However, wild mallards frequently returned to the study wetland, probably attracted by supplementary bait. On the other hand, farmed mallards seldom left the study wetland, despite the possibility of accompanying wild birds to other sites. The sedentary behavior of farmed mallards and the fact that wild birds come to join them are both beneficial for hunting purposes. Limited movements of farmed mallards together with their low survival could also be positive as they limit hybridization between wild and farmed mallards, as well as dispersal of nutrients.

Social network shrinking is explained by active and passive effects but not increasing selectivity with age in wild macaques

Evidence of social disengagement, network narrowing, and social selectivity with advancing age in several non-human animals challenges our understanding of the causes of social ageing. Natural animal populations are needed to test whether social ageing and selectivity occur under natural predation and extrinsic mortality pressures, and longitudinal studies are particularly valuable to disentangle the contribution of within-individual ageing from the demographic processes that shape social ageing at the population level. Data on wild Assamese macaques (Macaca assamensis) were collected between 2013 and 2020 at the Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand. We investigated the social behaviour of 61 adult females observed for 13,270 hours to test several mechanistic hypotheses of social ageing and evaluated the consistency between patterns from mixed-longitudinal and within-individual analyses. With advancing age, females reduced the size of their social network, which could not be explained by an overall increase in the time spent alone, but by an age-related decline in mostly active, but also passive, behaviour, best demonstrated by within-individual analyses. A selective tendency to approach preferred partners was maintained into old age but did not increase. Our results contribute to our understanding of the driver of social ageing in natural animal populations and suggest that social disengagement and selectivity follow independent trajectories during ageing.

Alignment of mitogenome sequences (FASTA file) for a paleogenomic investigation of overharvest implications in an endemic wild reindeer subspecies

Overharvest can severely reduce the abundance and distribution of a species and thereby impact its genetic diversity and threaten its future viability. Overharvest remains an ongoing issue for Arctic mammals, which due to climate change now also confront one of the fastest changing environments on Earth. The high-Arctic Svalbard reindeer (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus), endemic to Svalbard, experienced a harvest-induced demographic bottleneck that occurred during the 17–20th centuries. Here we investigate changes in genetic diversity, population structure, and gene-specific differentiation during and after this overharvesting event. Using whole-genome shotgun sequencing, we generated the first ancient and historical nuclear (n = 11) and mitochondrial (n = 18) genomes from Svalbard reindeer (up to 4000 BP) and integrated these data with a large collection of modern genome sequences (n = 90), to infer temporal changes. We show that hunting resulted in major genetic changes and restructuring in reindeer populations. Near-extirpation followed by pronounced genetic drift have altered the allele frequencies of important genes contributing to diverse biological functions. Median heterozygosity was reduced by 23%, while the mitochondrial genetic diversity was reduced only to a limited extent, likely due to already low pre-harvest diversity and a complex post-harvest recolonization process. Such genomic erosion and genetic isolation of populations due to past anthropogenic disturbance will likely play a major role in metapopulation dynamics (i.e., extirpation, recolonization) under further climate change. Our results from a high-arctic case study therefore emphasize the need to understand the long-term interplay of past, current, and future stressors in wildlife conservation.

Data from: Metabarcoding of fecal pellets in wild muskox populations reveals negative relationships between microbiome and diet alpha diversity

Microbiome diversity and diet composition concomitantly influence species health, fitness, immunity, and digestion. In environments where diet varies spatially and temporally, microbiome plasticity may promote rapid host adaptation to available resources. For northern ungulates in particular, metabarcoding of noninvasively collected fecal pellets presents unprecedented insights into their diverse ecological requirements and niches by clarifying the interrelationships of microbiomes, key to deriving nutrients, in context of altered forage availability in changing climates. Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) are Arctic-adapted species that experience fluctuating qualities and quantities of vegetation. Geography and seasonality have been noted to influence microbiome composition and diversity in muskoxen, yet it is unclear how their microbiomes intersect with diet. Following observations from other species, we hypothesized increasing diet diversity would result in higher microbiome diversity in muskoxen. We assessed diet composition in muskoxen using three common plant metabarcoding markers and explored correlations with microbiome data. Patterns of dietary diversity and composition were not fully concordant among the markers used, yet all reflected the primary consumption of willows and sedges. Individuals with similar diets had more similar microbiomes, yet in contrast to most literature, yielded negative relationships between microbiome and diet alpha diversity. This negative correlation may reflect the unique capacities of muskoxen to survive solely on high-fiber Arctic forage and provide insight into their resiliency to exploit changing dietary resources in a rapidly warming Arctic altering vegetation diversity.

Data from: The evolutionary genomics of adaptation to stress in wild rhizobium bacteria

Microbiota comprise the bulk of life's diversity, yet we know little about how populations of microbes accumulate adaptive diversity across natural landscapes. Adaptation to stressful soil conditions in plants provides seminal examples of adaptation in response to natural selection via allelic substitution. For microbes symbiotic with plants however, horizontal gene transfer allows for adaptation via gene gain and loss, which could generate fundamentally different evolutionary dynamics. We use comparative genomics and genetics to elucidate the evolutionary mechanisms of adaptation to physiologically stressful serpentine soils in rhizobial bacteria in western North American grasslands. In vitro experiments demonstrate that the presence of a locus of major effect, the nre operon, is necessary and sufficient to confer adaptation to nickel, a heavy metal enriched to toxic levels in serpentine soil, and a major axis of environmental soil chemistry variation. We find discordance between inferred evolutionary histories of the core genome and nreAXY genes, which often reside in putative genomic islands. This suggests that the evolutionary history of this adaptive variant is marked by frequent losses, and/or gains via horizontal acquisition across divergent rhizobium clades. However, different nre alleles confer distinct levels of nickel resistance, suggesting allelic substitution could also play a role in rhizobium adaptation to serpentine soil. These results illustrate that the interplay between evolution via gene gain and loss and evolution via allelic substitution may underlie adaptation in wild soil microbiota. Both processes are important to consider for understanding adaptive diversity in microbes and improving stress-adapted microbial inocula for human use.

Data from: Consistent seasonal flexibility of the gut and its regions across wild populations of a winter-quiescent fish

Here, we investigated phenotypic flexibility in the size of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract across three northern populations of a winter-dormant warm-water fish, pumpkinseed sunfish (Lepomis gibbosus). The dried masses of all gut regions (stomach, pyloric caeca, intestine) were measured approximately biweekly between January and August 2021. In all populations, pumpkinseed exhibited pronounced structural flexibility in the GI tract, aligned with winter and the timing of reproduction. The dry mass of the GI increased by 1.3- to nearly 2.5-fold in the early spring. The pyloric caeca demonstrated the greatest capacity for flexibility, increasing by up to 3.7-fold prior to reproduction. In all populations, minimum dry GI mass was consistently achieved during winter and mid-summer. This capacity for gut flexibility may represent a novel mechanism for facilitating rapid adaptive responses (e.g., metabolic plasticity) to future environmental change.

Calling structural variants with confidence from short-read data in wild bird populations

Comprehensive characterisation of structural variation in natural populations has only become feasible in the last decade. To investigate the population genomic nature of structural variation (SV), reproducible and high-confidence SV callsets are first required. We created a population-scale reference of the genome-wide landscape of structural variation across 33 Nordic house sparrows (Passer domesticus) individuals. To produce a consensus callset across all samples using short-read data, we compare heuristic-based quality filtering and visual curation (Samplot/PlotCritic and Samplot-ML) approaches. We demonstrate that curation of SVs is important for reducing putative false positives and that the time invested in this step outweighs the potential costs of analysing short-read discovered SV datasets that include many potential false positives. We find that even a lenient manual curation strategy (e.g. applied by a single curator) can reduce the proportion of putative false positives by up to 80%, thus enriching the proportion of high-confidence variants. Crucially, in applying a lenient manual curation strategy with a single curator, nearly all (>99%) variants rejected as putative false positives were also classified as such by a more stringent curation strategy using three additional curators. Furthermore, variants rejected by manual curation failed to reflect the expected population structure from SNPs, whereas variants passing curation did. Combining heuristic-based quality-filtering with rapid manual curation of structural variants in short-read data can therefore become a time- and cost-effective first step for functional and population genomic studies requiring high-confidence SV callsets.

Data from: Introgression of non-native mitochondrial haplotypes from farmed to wild Atlantic salmon

Farmed salmon escape and interbreed with wild Atlantic salmon on a large scale. We studied introgression of mitochondrial haplotypes from farmed Atlantic salmon originating from the Eastern Atlantic phylogenetic group to wild salmon of the Barents-White Sea phylogenetic group. We find that farmed genetic introgression introduced novel, non-native haplotypes into the Barents-White Sea phylogenetic group. The mitochondrial genome has important functional effects and is inherited as a haploid from the mother. Hence, the observed introgression across natural genetic barriers is expected to cause long-lasting functional maladaptation of the hybrids in the maternal line. As the use of farmed Atlantic salmon from non-native phylogenetic groups is widespread in aquaculture, the impact on wild Atlantic salmon may be more severe than previously recognized. Our results highlight the ecological risks of releasing non-native wild and domesticated animals.

Data from: "Dead birds flying": Can North American rehabilitated raptors released into the wild mitigate anthropogenic mortality?

As the human footprint expands to meet societal energy needs, so do the impacts on wildlife. Raptors in particular are highly susceptible to anthropogenic caused mortality. Industry sectors are encouraged to offset these causes of mortality. Several options to mitigate these losses have been proposed, including raptor rehabilitation. However, its role as a conservation tool is untested. Currently, no peer-reviewed demographic analyses exist using post-release data from rehabilitated raptors to evaluate its effectiveness at continental scales. Our objectives were to estimate annual survival of rehabilitated and wild raptors, and then use those estimates in demographic models to assess potential effects at individual and population levels. We hypothesized that rehabilitated raptors would survive similarly to their wild counterparts after an acclimation period, and that longer-lived species (K-selected) would benefit most from these releases. We used U.S. Geological Survey Bird Banding Lab band-recovery data (1974 – 2018) from 20 raptor species for modeling survival of rehabilitated individuals (n = 125,740) in comparison to wild birds (n = 1,913,352). Results from 17 species with adequate recovery data indicated that 5 species rehabilitated ≠ wild survival, 2 species had uncertain estimates, and 10 species rehabilitated ≈ wild survival by years 2 and 3 post-release. We acquired admission (n = 69,707) and release (n = 25,740) data from 24 rehabilitation centers across the U.S. (2012-2021). We integrated survival, fecundity, and numbers of releases into demographic models. These models quantified the extent to which rehabilitated raptors may contribute to broader conservation efforts, especially in the context of individual take. All but two species had measurable numbers of individuals added to the population regardless of the number of releases. The general pattern was for K-selected species to yield larger benefits from rehabilitated supplementation to the population. These results provide evidence that rehabilitation may serve as a mitigation tool to offset incidental take.

Data for: Shifts in plant-invertebrate interactions between wild and ex-situ conservation populations of a critically endangered tree

Ex-situ conservation is an effective approach to prevent the extinction of endangered species. Biotic interactions (eg herbivory and pollination) are critical to ex-situ conservation success, including plant establishment, survival, and reproduction. However, shifts in biotic interactions between wild and ex-situ populations are still poorly understood. We compared herbivory and pollination characteristics between the only wild population (WP) and three ex-situ populations (LP, local population, nearby WP; NP, north population, ca. 850 km; and SP, south population, ca. 750 km) of a critically endangered tree species (Sinojackia huangmeiensis) to explore the latitudinal changes in plant-invertebrate interactions. Larvae of the Limacodidae family were the dominant herbivores in WP, LP, and NP, while the only herbivore observed in SP was a snail. Compared to WP, the leaf herbivory rate was unchanged in LP but decreased in NP and SP. Leaf defense traits (total phenols, tannins, leaf thickness, and leaf dry matter content) increased or remained unchanged in the three ex-situ populations. A pollinator (Apis cerana) of S. huangmeiensis was present in the four populations. NP and SP lacked some pollinators that were found in both WP and LP, but they shared one pollinator that was not observed in WP and LP. The pollinator visiting frequency increased in SP, while it did not change significantly in LP and NP. Synthesis and applications: Our results suggested that both herbivory and pollination of S. huangmeiensis changed in ex-situ populations, with complete or partial changes in herbivores, leaf herbivory rate, pollinators, pollinator visiting frequency, and fruit set in the two distant ex-situ populations. This work provides a unique empirical study of shifts in both antagonistic and mutualistic biotic interactions between wild and ex-situ populations. We emphasized that it is essential to integrate herbivore and pollinator management in future ex-situ conservation of plant species.

Male dingo urinary scents code for age class and wild dingoes respond to this information

Chemical information in canid urine has been implicated in territoriality and influences the spacing of individuals. We identified the key volatile organic compound (VOC) components in dingo (Canis lupus dingo) urine and investigated the potential role of scents in territorial spacing. VOC analysis, using headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), demonstrated that the information in fresh urine from adult male dingoes was sufficient to allow statistical classification into age categories. Discriminant function analyses demonstrated that the relative amounts or combinations of key VOCs from pre-prime (3-4 years), prime (5-9 years), and post-prime (≥10 years) males varied between these age categories, and that scents exposed to the environment for 4 (but not 33) days could still be classified to age categories. Further, a field experiment showed that dingoes spent less time in the vicinity of prime male dingo scents than other scents. Collectively, these results indicate that age-related scent differences may be discriminable by dingoes. Previous authors have suggested the potential to use scent as a management tool for wild canids by creating an artificial territorial boundary/barrier. Our results suggest that identifying the specific signals in prime-age male scents could facilitate the development of scent-based tools for non-lethal management.

Data from: Spatiotemporal variation in the gut microbiomes of co-occurring wild rodent species

Mammalian gut microbiomes differ within and among individual hosts. Hosts that occupy a range of environmental conditions may exhibit greater spatiotemporal variation in their microbiome than those constrained as specialists to narrower subsets of resources or habitats. This can occur because widespread host species encounter a variety of ecological conditions that act to diversify their gut microbiomes and/or because generalized host species tend to form large populations that promote sharing and maintenance of diverse microbes. We studied spatiotemporal variation in the gut microbiomes of three co-occurring rodent species across an environmental gradient in a Kenyan savanna. We hypothesized: (i) the taxonomic, phylogenetic, and predicted functional composition of gut microbiomes differ significantly among host species, (ii) microbiome richness increases with population size for all host species, and (iii) host species exhibit different rates of seasonal change in their gut microbiomes, reflecting different sensitivities to environmental change. We evaluated changes in gut microbiome according to species identity, site, and host population density using three years of capture-mark-recapture data and 351 microbiome samples. Host species differed significantly in microbiome composition, though those with the more specialized diets and higher demographic sensitivities showed only slightly greater microbiome variability than those of a widespread dietary generalist. Total microbiome richness in populations of all species increased significantly with population size, but only one of the more specialized species also exhibited greater within-individual microbiome richness with population size. Across co-occurring rodent species with diverse diets and life histories, host population growth in response to rainfall was associated both with strong increases in population-level microbiome richness (sampling effects) and turnover in the relative abundance of bacterial taxa (environmental effects), but there was not consistent change in intra-individual richness (individual variation). Together, our results show that maintenance of large host populations contributes to the maintenance of gut microbiome diversity in wild mammals.

Urban wild meat consumption across southern forested Cameroon and the limited effect of COVID-19 on wild meat consumption patterns

Overexploitation of wildlife is pervasive in many tropical regions, and in addition to being a significant conservation and sustainability concern, it has received global attention given discussions over the origins of zoonotic disease outbreaks. Where unsustainable, consumption of wild meat by urban residents has been identified as a major socio-environmental challenge, given it is a significant driver of wildlife declines. Yet, information on urban wild meat consumers and possible ways to target conservation interventions remains lacking. Using one of the largest datasets of urban wild meat consumers (1,391) collected through structured questionnaires in 20 towns and cities, we model the demographic, psychographic, and spatial factors associated with wild meat consumption patterns in Cameroon. We find that nearly half of the sampled consumers ate wild meat once per week or more, and find that the probability of being a frequent consumer was greater among men, those living in smaller towns, and those who do not consider there to be a link between eating wild meat and disease. Threatened pangolin species are highly preferred among urban consumers, and most consumers do not consider there to be a link between COVID-19 and pangolins. Most respondents had eaten wild meat since the beginning of COVID-19 and had not reduced their wild meat consumption due to COVID-19. For the first time, we show that consumers with beliefs against a link between wild meat consumption and disease and those with greater income were less likely to have decreased their wild meat consumption. We identified stakeholders including teachers and religious/community leaders as potentially appropriate messengers for demand-reduction campaigns, with television and radio being the most trusted communication channels among wild meat consumers. Crucially, our study advances the current scientific understanding of the factors that influence wild meat consumption frequency and change due to COVID-19 by urban consumers (particularly health beliefs and settlement size). We discuss how our results could be used to inform the design of wild meat demand-reduction interventions to bring the consumption of wild meat towards sustainability in Cameroon, and how our approach is applied pan-tropically.