Julie Rushmore, DVM, PhD

host behavior & pathogen transmission

Many infectious diseases spread through social interactions, and variation in host contact patterns can alter pathogen transmission dynamics. Great apes are highly social and endangered animals that have experienced substantial population declines from directly transmitted pathogens. As such, network approaches to quantify contact variation could be crucially important for predicting infection probability and outbreak size following pathogen introduction, especially owning to challenges in collecting real-time infection data for endangered wildlife.

Collaborators: Damien Caillaud, Sonia Altizer, Becky Stumpf, Leopold Matamba, Steve Borgatti, Anna Jolles, Bree Beechler, Sascha Knauf

vaccination strategies for social wildlife

Network analysis, which can identify highly connected individuals that may contribute disproportionately to pathogen spread, has advanced scientific understanding of transmission and control for human diseases including influenza, SARS and HIV/AIDS. This same approach can be used to evaluate interventions for endangered wildlife, yet such investigations are currently rare. The ultimate goal of this research is to use network theory to develop immunization strategies for wildlife species that could both prevent large outbreaks and reduce the number of animals requiring vaccination as compared to a random control approach.

Collaborators: Damien Caillaud, Sonia Altizer, Richard Hall, Becky Stumpf, Lauren Ancel Meyers

sexually transmitted diseases in wild primates

Previous research indicates that STDs can go undetected for long time periods and persist in small declining host populations. However, despite known effects of STDs on sterility in humans and STD-induced declines in wildlife species, few studies have examined the prevalence and impacts of STDs on wild primates. Our work focuses on examining the prevalence and diversity of STDs in great apes and baboons.

Collaborators: Sascha Knauf, Filipa Paciência, Michael Yabsley, Andrew Allison, Erin Edwards, Ujwal Bagal, Mike Cranfield, Travis Glenn, Hsi Liu, Lawrence Mugisha, Martin Muller, Becky Stumpf, Melissa E Thompson, Richard Wrangham

pathogen diversity in captive & wild primates

To investigate the effects of captivity on parasitism, we systematically compared parasitism in wild and captive primates, with parasites including macro-parasites (helminths and arthropods) and micro-parasites (viruses, protozoa, bacteria, and fungi).

Collaborators: Sonia Altizer, Charlie Nunn, James Herrera, Debapriyo Chakraborty