Individual, Social, and Environmental Factors Associated with Patterns of Parasitic Infection in Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus imitator)
type: CreativeWork
description: Parasites, and the infectious diseases they carry, are thought to have significantly impacted our evolutionary trajectory for millennia. Exploring how parasites are acquired and transmitted by their hosts in wild, natural populations is integral to understanding how similar processes may have shaped host-parasite co-evolutionary relationships over time. However, parasitological studies in humans and in non-human primates have produced inconsistent results, highlighting the dynamic, nuanced, and unique relationships individual parasites have with their hosts. These relationships are largely regulated by variation in factors at host, social, and environmental levels. Characteristics unique to the host (e.g., age and sex), factors pertaining to aspects of host sociality (e.g., host group size, kinship, dominance rank, etc.), and environmental factors (e.g., climate and habitat composition) all work independently and in tandem to affect both a host’s chance of encountering a parasite and its susceptibility to infection by that parasite. In this dissertation, I integrate morphological and molecular methods in parasitology to explore how host-level, social, and environmental factors relate to patterns of gastrointestinal parasitic infection in wild capuchin monkeys (Cebus imitator) living in a highly seasonal tropical dry forest in Northwestern Costa Rica. In Chapter 1, I begin by reviewing the two main ‘pillars’ of parasitic infections: susceptibility and encounter. I then briefly review common, well-studied, and importantgastrointestinal parasites of non-human primates before explaining why non-human primates make useful models for studying human health and evolution. I follow by reviewing recent studies examining patterns of parasitism in non-human primates before introducing my model species, the white-faced capuchin. I end the chapter by providing a brief overview of my three major research questions, introducing this study’s field site and study population, and end …
abstract: Parasites, and the infectious diseases they carry, are thought to have significantly impacted our evolutionary trajectory for millennia. Exploring how parasites are acquired and transmitted by their hosts in wild, natural populations is integral to understanding how similar processes may have shaped host-parasite co-evolutionary relationships over time. However, parasitological studies in humans and in non-human primates have produced inconsistent results, highlighting the dynamic, nuanced, and unique relationships individual parasites have with their hosts. These relationships are largely regulated by variation in factors at host, social, and environmental levels. Characteristics unique to the host (e.g., age and sex), factors pertaining to aspects of host sociality (e.g., host group size, kinship, dominance rank, etc.), and environmental factors (e.g., climate and habitat composition) all work independently and in tandem to affect both a host’s chance of encountering a parasite and its susceptibility to infection by that parasite. In this dissertation, I integrate morphological and molecular methods in parasitology to explore how host-level, social, and environmental factors relate to patterns of gastrointestinal parasitic infection in wild capuchin monkeys (Cebus imitator) living in a highly seasonal tropical dry forest in Northwestern Costa Rica. In Chapter 1, I begin by reviewing the two main ‘pillars’ of parasitic infections: susceptibility and encounter. I then briefly review common, well-studied, and importantgastrointestinal parasites of non-human primates before explaining why non-human primates make useful models for studying human health and evolution. I follow by reviewing recent studies examining patterns of parasitism in non-human primates before introducing my model species, the white-faced capuchin. I end the chapter by providing a brief overview of my three major research questions, introducing this study’s field site and study population, and end …
author: Henriquez, Megan C
keywords: Animal Sciences, Biological and Physical Anthropology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, Parasitology, Primatology, Biological Anthropology, Costa Rica
date published: 2025-06-01T07:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:59:54Z
provider: City University of New York - Graduate Center
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York