Article
 

Large wildlife removal drives immune defence increases in rodents

Public Deposited

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/articles/cr56n2857

Descriptions

Attribute NameValues
Creator
Abstract
  • 1. Anthropogenic disturbances involving land use change, climate disruption, pollution and invasive species have been shown to impact immune function of wild animals. These immune changes have direct impacts on the fitness of impacted animals and, also, potentially indirect effects on other species and on ecological processes, notably involving the spread of infectious disease. Here, we investigate whether the selective loss of large wildlife can also drive changes in immune function of other consumer species. 2. Using a long-standing large-scale exclosure experiment in East Africa, we investigated the effects of selective removal of large wildlife on multiple measures of immune function in the dominant small rodent in the system, the East African pouched mouse, Saccostomus mearnsi. 3. We find support for a general increase in immune function in landscapes where large wildlife has been removed, but with some variation across immune parameters. These changes may be mediated in part by increased pathogen pressure in plots where large wildlife has been removed due to major increases in rodent density in such plots, but other factors such as changes in food resources are also likely involved. 4. Overall, our research reveals that the elimination of large-bodied wildlife – now recognized as another major form of global anthropogenic change – may have cascading effects on immune health, with the potential for these effects to also impact disease dynamics in ecological communities.
  • This is the publisher’s final pdf. The article is copyrighted by the authors and the British Ecological Society. It is published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. It can be found at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291365-2435/
  • Keywords: rodent, defaunation, wildlife decline, Kenya Long-term Exclosure Experiment, ecoimmunology
Resource Type
DOI
Date Available
Date Issued
Citation
  • Young, H. S., Dirzo, R., Helgen, K. M., McCauley, D. J., Nunn, C. L., Snyder, P., ... & Ezenwa, V. O. (2016). Large wildlife removal drives immune defence increases in rodents. Functional Ecology, 30(5), 799-807. doi:10.1111/1365-2435.12542
Journal Title
Journal Volume
  • 30
Journal Issue/Number
  • 5
Rights Statement
Related Items
  • Data deposited in the Dryad Digital Repository (Young et al. 2015a)
Funding Statement (additional comments about funding)
  • Financial support for this project came from the James Smithson Fund of the Smithsonian Institution, the Smithsonian Grand Challenges Initiative, the National Geographic Society, the Woods Institute for the Environment (Stanford University), the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee (SWC 22 and 44), the Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE Environmental Fellows Program) and the National Science Foundation (LTREB BSR 97-07477, 03-16402, 08-16453, 12-56004 and 12-56034).
Publisher
Peer Reviewed
Language
Replaces

Relationships

Parents:

This work has no parents.

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details YoungLargeWildlifeRemoval.pdf 07/26/2017 Public
file details YoungLargeWildlifeRemovalLaySummary.pdf 07/26/2017 Public
file details YoungLargeWildlifeRemovalMethodsS1.pdf 07/26/2017 Public