Ebola whole virus vaccine shown effective, safe in primates

An Ebola whole virus vaccine, constructed using a novel experimental platform, has been shown to effectively protect monkeys exposed to the often fatal virus.

The vaccine, described today (March 26, 2015) in the journal Science, was developed by a group led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a University of Wisconsin-Madison expert on avian influenza, Ebola and other viruses of medical importance. It differs from other Ebola vaccines because as an inactivated whole virus vaccine, it primes the host immune system with the full complement of Ebola viral proteins and genes, potentially conferring greater protection.

“In terms of efficacy, this affords excellent protection,” explains Kawaoka, a professor of pathobiological sciences in the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and who also holds a faculty appointment at the University of Tokyo. “It is also a very safe vaccine.”

The vaccine was constructed on an experimental platform first devised in 2008 by Peter Halfmann, a research scientist in Kawaoka’s lab. The system allows researchers to safely work with the virus thanks to the deletion of a key gene known as VP30, which the Ebola virus uses to make a protein required for it to reproduce in host cells. Ebola virus has only eight genes and, like most viruses, depends on the molecular machinery of host cells to grow and become infectious.

By engineering monkey kidney cells to express the VP30 protein, the virus can be safely studied in the lab and be used as a basis for devising countermeasures like a whole virus vaccine. The vaccine reported by Kawaoka and his colleagues was additionally chemically inactivated using hydrogen peroxide, according to the new Science report.

Ebola first emerged in 1976 in Sudan and Zaire. The current outbreak in West Africa has so far claimed more than 10,000 lives. There are no proven treatments or vaccines, although several vaccine platforms have been devised in recent years, four of which recently advanced to the clinical trial stage in humans.

The new vaccine reported by Kawaoka has not been tested in people. However, the successful tests in nonhuman primates conducted at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a biosafety level 4 facility in Hamilton, Montana, may prompt further tests and possibly clinical trials of the new vaccine. The work at Rocky Mountain Laboratories was conducted in collaboration with a group led by Heinz Feldmann of NIH.

Those studies were conducted with cynomolgus macaques, which are very susceptible to Ebola. “It’s the best model,” Kawaoka says. “If you get protection with this model, it’s working.”

Ebola vaccines currently in trials include:

— A DNA-based plasmid vaccine that primes host cells with some of the Ebola proteins.

— A vaccine based on a replication incompetent chimpanzee respiratory virus engineered to express a key Ebola protein.

— A live attenuated virus from the same family of viruses that causes rabies, also engineered to express a critical Ebola protein.

— A vaccine based on a vaccinia virus and engineered to express a critical Ebola protein.

Each of those strategies, Kawaoka notes, has drawbacks in terms of safety and delivery.

Whole virus vaccines have long been used to successfully prevent serious human diseases, including polio, influenza, hepatitis and human papillomavirus-mediated cervical cancer.

The advantage conferred by inactivated whole virus vaccines such as the one devised by Halfmann, Kawaoka and their colleagues is that they present the complete range of proteins and genetic material to the host immune system, which is then more likely to trigger a broader and more robust immune response.

Early attempts to devise an inactivated whole virus Ebola vaccine through irradiation and the preservative formalin failed to protect monkeys exposed to the Ebola virus and were abandoned.

Although the new vaccine has surpassed that hurdle, human trials are expensive and complex, costing millions of dollars.

The Ebola vaccine study conducted by Kawaoka was supported by the National Institutes of Health and by the Japanese Health and Labour Sciences Research Grants.

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The above story is based on materials provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison. The original article was written by Terry Devitt. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Gorilla Seems To Give Middle Finger To Another Gorilla During A Fight

[embedded content]A pesky gorilla at Busch Gardens Tampa won’t take the hint. The animal keeps on bothering a fellow gorilla, then gets a piece of its mind.One gorilla wants to play, repeatedly throwing a toy at the other gorilla. Meanwhile that other gorilla, seems like it’d rather not have toys thrown at it… so it holds up its middle finger. Point well made.Full story here. —————————————–

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Milk protein comparison unveils nutritional gems for developing babies

Human babies appear to need more of a nutritional boost from breast-milk proteins than do infants of one of their closest primate relatives, suggests a study comparing human milk with the milk of rhesus macaque monkeys.

The research team, led by the University of California, Davis, came to this conclusion after developing a new technique for comparing the proteome — all detectable proteins — of human milk with the proteome of the rhesus macaque monkey.

The researchers expect the findings will provide a better understanding of human breast-milk composition and identify fundamental nutrients that should be included in infant formula.

The study, which revealed the first comprehensive macaque milk proteome and newly identified 524 human milk proteins, is reported online in the Journal of Proteome Research.

“Human milk provides a recipe for human nutrition during the neonatal period,” said principal investigator Danielle Lemay, a nutritional biologist at the UC Davis Genome Center. “But because so much remains to be understood about milk’s molecular composition, we developed a new technique for analyzing milk proteomics that overcomes earlier barriers,” she said.

Using this new method, Lemay and colleagues identified 1,606 proteins in human milk and 518 proteins in rhesus macaque milk. These included 88 milk proteins that were common to both species, but at different levels. Ninety-three percent of those shared proteins were more abundant in human milk than in macaque milk.

For example, the researchers found that human milk contained significantly higher levels of milk proteins that help in digestion of fat-like compounds; slow protein digestion; and potentially increase the absorption of iron, vitamin B-12, and vitamin D.

“The higher levels of these proteins in human milk are consistent with the well-established perspective that human babies, compared to other primate infants, are born at a slightly earlier stage of development and require higher levels of specific proteins that will nurture them as they mature,” Lemay said.

She noted that these proteins found at higher levels in human milk include specific proteins that are enriched in human brain tissues, suggesting that they may be involved in neurodevelopment.

“Proteins that appear to have neurodevelopmental significance for human babies will be key targets for future research focused on enhancing infant formula,” Lemay said.

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The above story is based on materials provided by University of California – Davis. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Baboon friends swap gut germs

The warm soft folds of the intestines are teeming with thousands of species of bacteria. Collectively known as the gut microbiome, these microbes help break down food, synthesize vitamins, regulate weight and resist infection.

If they’re so key to health, what factors shape an individual’s gut microbial makeup?

Previous studies have pointed to the food we eat, the drugs we take, genetics, even our house dust. Now, a new study in baboons suggests that relationships may play a role, too.

The researchers studied social interactions, eating habits and bacteria in the feces of 48 wild baboons from two groups living near Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya. Their findings appear in the March 16 issue of the journal eLife.

“Poop contains a goldmine of data,” said Duke University biologist Jenny Tung, who co-authored the study. “Ninety-eight percent of the DNA in poop doesn’t come from the animal itself or the foods they eat — it’s bacterial.”

Using powerful sequencing machines to tease out each microbe’s unique genetic signature, the researchers identified the names and relative amounts of nearly 1,000 bacterial species thriving in the baboons’ bowels.

The cast of characters includes relatively high levels of Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes — all of which are also commonly found in human guts.

Baboons from the same troop had more similar gut microbes than baboons from different troops.

The results are consistent with previous studies in humans showing that people who live together harbor similar gut germs. The connection has largely been attributed to couples and housemates eating many of the same foods in the same relative proportions, but Tung and co-author Elizabeth Archie of the University of Notre Dame and colleagues wondered if additional factors might be at play.

To find out, the researchers recorded what the animals ate — a menu of grass seeds and stems, acacia seed pods, fruits and leaves.

They also noted when the baboons in each group hung out in close proximity to each other without physical contact, and measured how often they groomed each other.

They found that, in both groups, baboons who groomed each other more often shared more similar sets of gut microbes.

How friendly two baboons were to each other was a better predictor of how alike their gut bacterial communities were than whether they merely hung out in the same places, were related, or what they ate.

How fecal bacteria find their way from a baboon’s colon to her fur and from there to another baboon’s gut is unclear, but the researchers have a few ideas.

“When baboons groom each other they’re combing through each other’s fur for parasites, dirt, dead skin. Sometimes they pull things off and put them in their mouths,” Archie said.

“Males and females also spend a lot of time grooming close to the genital area during estrous,” Tung said.

Hugging and cuddling and other forms of physical contact could play a role in allowing people to swap gut germs, too, the researchers say, especially after touching surfaces such as bathroom sinks and toilet handles.

“This is another way that social relationships can influence your health,” Archie said. “Not only are relationships important for the transmission of harmful bacteria like the ones that cause pneumonia or strep throat, but they’re important for the transmission of microbes that are harmless or potentially good for you, too.”

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The above story is based on materials provided by Duke University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Move over Mozart: Study shows cats prefer their own beat

As more animal shelters, primate centers and zoos start to play music for their charges, it’s still not clear whether and how human music affects animals.

Now, a study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that while cats ignore our music, they are highly responsive to “music” written especially for them. The study is online at Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

“We are not actually replicating cat sounds,” says lead author Charles Snowdon, an emeritus professor of psychology. “We are trying to create music with a pitch and tempo that appeals to cats.”

The first step in making cat music is “to evaluate music in the context of the animal’s sensory system,” he says. Cats, for example, vocalize one octave higher than people, “So it’s vital to get the pitch right. Then we tried to create music that would have a tempo that was appealing to cats.” One sample was based on the tempo of purring, the other on the sucking sound made during nursing.

In the tests, Snowdon and former UW undergraduate student (now a Ph.D. student at Binghamton University) Megan Savage brought a laptop and two speakers to the homes of 47 cats and played four sound samples: two from classical music, and two “cat songs” created by University of Maryland composer David Teie.

The music began after a period of silence, and the cat’s behavior was noted. Purring, walking toward the speaker and rubbing against it were adjudged positive response, while hissing, arching the back and erecting the fur were negative.

The cats were significantly more positive toward cat music than classical music. They began the positive response after an average of 110 seconds, compared to 171 seconds for the human music. The slow responses reflected the situation, Snowdon says. “Some of them needed to wake up and pay attention to what was going on, and some were out of the room when we set up.”

The cats showed almost the same number of aversive responses to each type of music.

The study follows a 2009 report by Snowdon and Teie, which showed that a monkey called the cotton-top tamarin responded emotionally to music composed specifically for them. That work led Snowdon and Teie to believe that “the same features that are effective in inducing and communicating emotional states in human music might also apply to other species.” These features include pitch, tempo and timbre.

Studies of animals and human music have produced conflicting results, and one influential study supposedly proved that animals do not appreciate music.

Snowdon says the field has labored under mistaken premises. One is the frequency problem: Animals hear different ranges than we do. Researchers who played Mozart to rats in Japan proved that the animals were ignoring frequencies below 4,000 hertz, meaning that most human music is irrelevant to them.

The second misconception is that all classical music will be calming, when it may in fact be invigorating, angry or ominous.

Combined, these factors may eliminate any chance that the animals would respond as expected to the “music” under study. “The problem is a bit of both,” says Snowdon. “They don’t hear it, and it’s not music to them.”

With more people trying to “enrich” the lives of animals by playing music to them, Snowdon hopes the more sophisticated approach he and his colleagues take will help put some facts on the table.

“A reporter for National Public Radio is convinced his dog likes classical, so he puts on NPR all day,” he says. “A guy from a rock station thought his dog liked heavy metal, so he put that on all day. There is a lot of silly stuff going on. We don’t yet know, for most cases, what the effects of music are on animals.”

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The above story is based on materials provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison. The original article was written by David Tenenbaum. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Disease poses risk to chimpanzee conservation, study finds

Infectious disease should be a key consideration in wildlife conservation, suggests a study focused on primates in Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park, published by PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. The study investigated the parasite Cryptosporidium and cross-species transmission risks among humans, wild primates and domesticated animals within the greater Gombe ecosystem.

“We found that people are likely exposing the endangered chimpanzees of Gombe to a particular species of Cryptosporidium, which may be contributing to their decline,” says Michele Parsons, a PhD student in Emory University’s departments of Environmental Sciences and Environmental Health. “It appears to be a case of spillover, or exchange of a pathogen, from humans to animals, instead of the other way around.”

The spillover of any one pathogen between species, Parson adds, “is an indicator that an ecological connection exists, with potential for other pathogens to emerge.”

The study also revealed that some of the chimpanzees are infected with a species of Cryptosporidium associated with pigs. “No domesticated pigs reside in the village just outside the park, so we think it’s likely that the source of infection is wild pigs living in the forest,” Parsons says.

In addition to being a student in Emory’s Population Biology, Ecology and Evolution Graduate Program, Parsons is a research microbiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases.

She led the study with her PdD adviser, disease ecologist Thomas Gillespie, a professor in Emory’s Department of Environmental Sciences and Rollins School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental Health.

“When it comes to protecting endangered species, the focus is often limited to providing habitat and preventing hunting,” Gillespie says. “But disease also matters in conservation, and that’s a relatively new message. Our research shows that if we’re going to keep these iconic chimpanzees on the planet, we need to address the spread of infectious diseases.”

Gombe is the site where Jane Goodall conducted her pioneering research into the behavior of wild chimpanzees, beginning in 1960. Goodall’s project is now the longest field study of any animal. Each individual chimpanzee has been identified, and its maternal line is known.

Despite the fact that Gombe became a protected wildlife park in 1968, the chimpanzee population there is on the decline, down from about 150 chimpanzees 20 years ago to 100 today.

The Gillespie lab is one of the few investigating the ecology and epidemiology of infectious disease in natural systems where domesticated animals, humans and wildlife overlap.

Cryptosporidium, or “Crypto,” is one of the most frequent causes of waterborne disease in the United States, and is among the top four cases of moderate-to-severe diarrheal disease in young children in developing nations. Crypto is particularly dangerous for people infected with HIV, who tend to have more severe cases that can be fatal. Studies have also shown that chimpanzees infected with SIV (the ancestor of HIV) have a reduced lifespan and may be more vulnerable to opportunistic infections.

The researchers collected fecal samples from a cross-section of chimpanzees, baboons, humans, and domesticated dogs, goats and sheep within the greater Gombe ecosystem. The results revealed Crypto infection rates of about 16 percent in the wild primates, 4 percent in humans and 10 percent in the goats and sheep.

DNA sequencing uncovered a complex epidemiology for Crypto in this system, with humans, baboons and a subset of chimpanzees infected with C. hominis (which is most closely associated with humans), and another subset of chimpanzees infected with C. suis, (usually associated with pigs). All the positive sheep and goats were infected with C. xiaoi (a subtype associated with livestock).

“The dominance of C. hominis among humans and non-human primates suggest cross-species contamination,” the study authors write.

The baboons are known to raid human homes and trash for food, while the chimpanzees raid agricultural fields just outside the park boundaries. These behaviors expose the wild primates to the potentially contaminated feces of livestock or exposed human sewage.

Although water samples screened in the study were negative for Crypto, waterborne outbreaks of Crypto as a result of human and animal fecal contamination are common. “Homes with positive livestock had a tendency for increased risk of human infection, suggesting contribution of environmental factors or behaviors that may place the household at increased risk,” the study authors write.

The findings highlight the complex nature of zoonotic parasite transmission and stress the need for further studies, Parsons says. “It’s important to understand the ecology of diseases for both wildlife conservation and for human health. We need good baseline data in order to monitor emerging pathogens.”

Mapping ‘switches’ that shaped the evolution of the human brain

Thousands of genetic “dimmer” switches, regions of DNA known as regulatory elements, were turned up high during human evolution in the developing cerebral cortex, according to new research from the Yale School of Medicine.

Unlike in rhesus monkeys and mice, these switches show increased activity in humans, where they may drive the expression of genes in the cerebral cortex, the region of the brain that is involved in conscious thought and language. This difference may explain why the structure and function of that part of the brain is so unique in humans compared to other mammals.

The research, led by James P. Noonan, Steven K. Reilly, and Jun Yin, is published March 6 in the journal Science.

In addition to creating a rich and detailed catalogue of human-specific changes in gene regulation, Noonan and his colleagues pinpointed several biological processes potentially guided by these regulatory elements that are crucial to human brain development.

“Building a more complex cortex likely involves several things: making more cells, modifying the functions of cortical areas, and changing the connections neurons make with each other. And the regulatory changes we found in humans are associated with those processes,” said Noonan, associate professor of genetics, an investigator with the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, and senior author of the study. “This likely involves evolutionary modifications to cellular proliferation, cortical patterning, and other developmental processes that are generally well conserved across many species.”

Scientists have become adept at comparing the genomes of different species to identify the DNA sequence changes that underlie those differences. But many human genes are very similar to those of other primates, which suggests that changes in the way genes are regulated — in addition to changes in the genes themselves — is what sets human biology apart.

Up to this point, however, it has been very challenging to measure those changes and figure out their impact, especially in the developing brain. The Yale researchers took advantage of new experimental and computational tools to identify active regulatory elements — those DNA sequences that switch genes on or off at specific times and in specific cell types — directly in the human cortex and to study their biological effects.

First, Noonan and his colleagues mapped active regulatory elements in the human genome during the first 12 weeks of cortical development by searching for specific biochemical, or “epigenetic” modifications. They did the same in the developing brains of rhesus monkeys and mice, then compared the three maps to identify those elements that showed greater activity in the developing human brain. They found several thousand regulatory elements that showed increased activity in human.

Next, they wanted to know the biological impact of those regulatory changes. The team turned to BrainSpan, a freely available digital atlas of gene expression in the brain throughout the human lifespan. (BrainSpan was led by Kavli Institute member Nenad Sestan at Yale, with contributions from Noonan and Pasko Rakic, a co-author on this study.) They used those data to identify groups of genes that showed coordinated expression in the cerebral cortex. They then overlaid the regulatory changes they had found with these groups of genes and identified several biological processes associated with a surprisingly high number of regulatory changes in humans.

“While we often think of the human brain as a highly innovative structure, it’s been surprising that so many of these regulatory elements seem to play a role in ancient processes important for building the cortex in all mammals, said first author Steven Reilly. “However, this is often a hallmark of evolution, tinkering with the tools available to produce new features and functions.”

Next, Noonan and colleagues plan to investigate the function of some of the regulatory changes they identified by introducing them into the mouse genome and studying their effects on mouse brain development.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health (GM094780, DA023999, NS014841, GM106628) and a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. It was conducted in collaboration with Pasko Rakic, director of the Kavli Institute at Yale and one of the world’s leading experts on the development of the human cortex. Other authors were Deena Emera, Jing Leng, Justin Cotney and Richard Sarro in the Noonan lab and Albert E. Ayoub in the Rakic lab.

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The above story is based on materials provided by Yale University. The original article was written by Lindsay Borthwick. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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New monkey species discovered in the Amazon rainforest

Scientists have discovered a new species of titi monkey in Brazil, according to a recent paper published in scientific journal Papéis Avulsos de Zoologia.Titis are new world monkeys found across South America. These tree-dwelling primates have long, soft fur and live in small family groups consisting of a monogamous pair and their offspring. Rather touchingly, they are often observed sitting or sleeping with their tails entwined.In 2011, researcher Julio César Dalponte spotted an unusual looking titi monkey on the east bank of the Roosevelt River, whose colouration did not match any known species. Intrigued, a team of scientists supported by the Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP – a partnership between three NGOs, including Fauna & Flora International) headed back into the field to collect the information needed to formally describe what they believed to be a new species.Full story here. —————————————–

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Vampire bats: Who bit whom?

Scientists discovered a new retrovirus “fossil” found in the common vampire bat which is homologous to retroviruses in rodents and primates. The results suggest the recent circulation of an active infectious retrovirus and cross-species transmission. The study has been published in the scientific journal Journal of Virology.

Vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) samples from Mexico and from the Berlin Zoological Garden revealed a new endogenous retrovirus (named DrERV after Desmodus rotundus endogenous retrovirus) that is also present in rodents and primates but is absent in other closely related bat species. The results suggest that this virus historically jumped more than once among different species. Moreover, evolutionary analysis showed that this virus integrated long ago in vampire bats but very recently in monkeys and rats, suggesting that an active infectious counterpart of DrERV might still be in circulation.

“We were surprised to get a result that suggests that vampire bats may not be the reservoir for this retrovirus but might have been infected independently of monkeys and rats by a yet undiscovered reservoir,” says Marina Escalera, leading author of the study.

A large international team of scientists decided to search for viruses other than rabies present in the vampire bat. Members of the team are the Department of Wildlife Diseases research of the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin (IZW) headed by Alex Greenwood, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the National Center for Research in Animal Microbiology (CENID-INIFAP) among other institutions in Mexico and the Centre for Geogenetics of the Natural History Museum of Denmark. The scientists first reported find was a special kind of ‘fossil’ virus, called an endogenous retrovirus (ERV). ERVs belong to the same family as the HIV virus, but unlike HIV, they are viruses that circulated in the past and that were able to integrate themselves into the genomes of their hosts. Therefore, they provide a window into studying past viral infections that happened over millions of years in different species. Nonetheless, some ERVs may still retain the ability to become reactivated and are implicated in the development of diseases.

“An important focus of our group is to study novel and historical pathogen transmission among wildlife and its evolutionary implications. We have studied the evolution of retroviruses in several mammalian species, and as retroviruses are primarily transmitted via blood to blood contact, we hypothesized that the vampire bat could carry retroviruses that were particularly prone to jumping from one species to another throughout their evolutionary history,” explains Greenwood.

Pathogen surveillance in wildlife is an important strategy for detecting viruses that could represent a health risk to both humans and other animals. The common vampire bat is widely distributed in Latin America, from Southern Mexico to Northern Chile, Brazil and Uruguay and often feeds on blood from domestic animals, such as cattle. Vampire bats are known to carry the rabies virus but little is known about other viruses that they might carry.

This study represents the only research done so far on endogenous retroviruses of New World bats and suggests there is still much to be learned about vampire bats as viral reservoirs.

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The above story is based on materials provided by Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. (FVB). Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Amazon deforestation ‘threshold’ causes species loss to accelerate

One of the first studies to map the impact of deforestation on biodiversity across entire regions of the Amazon has found a clear ‘threshold’ for forest cover below which species loss becomes more rapid and widespread.

By measuring the loss of a core tranche of dominant species of large and medium-sized mammals and birds, and using the results as a bellwether, the researchers found that for every 10% of forest loss, one to two major species are wiped out.

This is until the threshold of 43% of forest cover is reached, beyond which the rate of biodiversity loss jumps from between two to up to eight major species gone per 10% of disappeared forest.

While current Brazilian law requires individual landowners in the Amazon to retain 80% forest cover, this is rarely achieved or enforced. Researchers say that the focus should be shifted to maintaining 50% cover — just half the forest — but over entire landscapes rather than individual farms, in a bid to stop whole regions losing untold biodiversity by slipping below the 43% threshold at which species loss accelerates.

Unless urgent action is taken to stem deforestation in key areas that are heading towards or have just dipped below the forest cover ‘threshold’ — which, according to the research team’s models, amounts to a third of the Amazon — these areas will suffer the loss of between 31-44% of species by just 2030.

“These results support the need for a major shift in the scale at which environmental legislation is applied in Brazil and the tropics,” said Dr Jose Manuel Ochoa-Quintero, from Cambridge University’s Department of Zoology, who led the study, published recently in the journal Conservation Biology.

“We need to move from thinking in terms of compliance at a farm scale to compliance at a landscape scale if we are to save as many species as we can from extinction,” he said.

The researchers worked across an area of the North West Amazon over three million hectares in size. They then divided the region into 1,223 squares of 10,000km, and selected 31 squares representative of the spectrum of forest cover across the region (12-90% cover). 27 squares consisted of private land; only four were protected areas (PAs). PAs were only areas in region with almost complete forest cover.

Within the 31 squares, researchers analysed the presence of 35 key species of mammals and birds for which these regions are natural habitats, such as pumas, giant anteaters and red howler monkeys. This was done through a combination of direct observation and recording evidence such as footprints and feces, as well as in-depth interviews with landowners and residents, who were quizzed about species presence through photographs, animal noises and local knowledge.

They found a cut-off, conservatively given as 43% forest cover, below which the squares held “markedly fewer species,” with up to eight key species lost for every 10% of further deforestation beyond this threshold.

“This is not just a result of overall loss of habitat, but also reduced connectivity between remaining forest fragments, causing species to hunt and mate in ever-decreasing circles,” said Ochoa-Quintero. “This fragmentation may be the key element of the ‘threshold’ tipping point for biodiversity.”

Encroaching agriculture — from beef to soya production — to feed a growing and more affluent human population means that, at the current rates, the number of 10,000km2 landscapes in the Amazon that fall below the species loss threshold of 43% forest cover will almost double by just 2030. At current rates, by 2030 only a mere 22% of landscapes in the region will be able to sustain three quarters of the key species surveyed for the study.

The expansion of agriculture in recent decades means that around 41% of the original forest in the study region — some two million hectares — has been lost over just the last 40 years.

Researchers say that while PAs can counter agricultural expansion — and many have increasingly called for PAs to expand across the planet amid dire evidence of rapid species decline — the limits on land that can be set aside for PAs means that biodiversity conservation success depends on protecting native vegetation on private lands.

The highest priority landscapes, some 33% of land in the region, are those that either just dipped below the 43% threshold in 2010, or are expected to in the next 20 years.

“Avoiding deforestation and focusing reforestation in the areas that teeter on the species loss threshold will be the most direct and cost-effective way to prevent further species loss in the Amazon region,” added Ochoa-Quintero.

Two Of Four Known AIDS Virus Groups Originated In Gorillas

Two of the four known groups of human AIDS viruses (HIV-1 groups O and P) originated in western lowland gorillas, according researchers who conducted a comprehensive survey of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection in African gorillas.HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS, has jumped species to infect humans on at least four separate occasions, generating four HIV-1 lineages — groups M, N, O, and P. Previous research from this team found that groups M and N originated in geographically distinct chimpanzee communities in southern Cameroon, but the origins of groups O and P remained uncertain.The four cross-species transmissions have had very different outcomes in humans. Group M gave rise to the AIDS pandemic, infecting more than 40 million people worldwide by spreading across Africa and throughout the rest of the world. Groups N and P, at the other extreme, have only been found in a few individuals from Cameroon. However, group O, although not as widespread and prevalent as group M, has nonetheless infected about 100,000 people in west central Africa. Full story here. —————————————–

Dangerous Bacteria Mysteriously Escapes From Louisiana Monkey Lab

How a potentially deadly strain of bacteria escaped from a primate research lab infecting four monkeys is a mystery, government officials said, but they added the incident poses no threat to the public.The bacterium in question, burkholderia pseudomallei, is widespread throughout Southeast Asia and northern Australia, infecting humans and animals via contaminated soil and water entering the blood stream through cuts in the skin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The high-security laboratory at the Tulane National Primate Research Center in Louisiana, which is studying the bacteria, reported that at least five rhesus macaques not used in studies were infected with the bug, possibly as early as November of last year, according to spokesman Michael Strecker. Full story here. —————————————–

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Monkeys shown in human settings can increase their desirability as pets

The way that monkeys are displayed in the media, such as in human settings and in contact with humans, can have serious effects on the way that the public perceives those species, according to a new study that publishes on Feb. 25, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

Previous research had demonstrated that the use of chimpanzees as performers in media such as television, movies and advertising, negatively affects public attitudes and the likelihood that someone might seek them as a pet. The degree to which these effects generalized beyond chimpanzees to other primate species was unknown until the current study, co-authored by Steve Ross, PhD of the Lester Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

The results suggest that the manner in which monkeys are displayed in media, can greatly influence how people perceive their suitability as pets as well their emotional state. Showing images of monkeys displayed in human settings, such as in a business office, significantly increased their desirability as a pet, which also correlated with increased likelihood of perceiving the animal as not being endangered in the wild.

“People felt very differently about monkeys depending on the context of the images,” explained Ross. “Seeing monkeys around humans and in human settings changed the perception of these species from wild animals that might need our conservation help, to those that might be suitable as a household pet. It’s a stark contrast in how these animals are characterized by the public.”

The study utilized visitor surveys that included a series of digitally altered photographs that showed three different primate species in different contexts and with varying degrees of human presence. By comparing how people characterized monkeys in pictures that showed them in human settings to those in more naturalistic contexts, the investigators were able to determine the influence of the different situations.

The use of monkeys as privately owned pets and as trained performers for movies, television and advertisements has been common practice for decades. These practices have been opposed on animal welfare grounds but these are among the first data to demonstrate the degree to which media portrayals might influence the private pet trade in these species, many of which are endangered in the wild.

“After our study of chimpanzee media portrayals, it was important to understand the degree to which these effects could be extended to other species as well,” said Ross. “Unfortunately there are many more monkeys kept as pets around the world, and these data indicate that the manner in which monkeys are shown in the media is at least one of the factors driving those practices.”

Like chimpanzee “actors,” monkeys trained for the entertainment business often live difficult lives. Monkeys are often removed from their mother at a very young age, their teeth removed for handling, and housed individually away from others of their kind.

“All primates, including monkeys and apes, are cognitively and emotionally complex,” he said. “We have a responsibility to ensure these animals are responsibly managed and importantly, that their wild populations are protected for future generations.”

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Lincoln Park Zoo. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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