Towards Assembling a Global Data M & M Archive for Terrestrial Mammals

To: The Ecology Community

From: Clara B. Jones (Director, Mammals and Phenogroups, MaPs, Asheville, NC)

Re: Towards Assembling a Global Data Archive of Morbidity and Mortality Events for Terrestrial Mammals

Date: 1/27/13

The purpose of this letter is to highlight a need for, and rationales for, assembling an “international repository” of Morbidity and Mortality (M and M) data for animals in the wild.  Terrestrial mammals are emphasized (Ameca y Juárez et al., 2012) because of their overwhelming dominance among terrestrial vertebrates and because, Homo sapiens, the species responsible for inducing and escalating recent deleterious effects on global biogeochemistry, is a member of Class, Mammalia.  A “multi-metric index” of M and M data requires a bioinformatic, quantitative approach yielding systematic storage, classification, and integration of information, permitting “knowledge management”, directed search, as well as analysis.  Nested bioinformatics designs are sensitive to scale, permitting weighted input of data from individual to ecosystem levels.  Knowledge of mortality patterns, assessed relative to other storable data (e.g., age-sex structure of populations, co-varying spatiotemporal, including, environmental, factors) would provide researchers and their collaborators a powerful source of information for evaluating ramifications of anthropogenic stressors for mammalian populations.

The proposed archive would serve as a “global information grid” of mortality events associated with local, regional, and global environmental regimes.  In addition to serving as a repository of data, the archive’s capacities for multi-dimensional mapping of variations in age, size, development, physiology, and genetics would permit a more comprehensive understanding of life-history* evolution and shifting mean fitness of populations in community and ecosystem contexts, with the potential to generate novel qualitative and quantitative perspectives on questions of critical import to conservation biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology.  Among other concerns to conservation biologists and their colleagues, a “global information grid” of M and M data for terrestrial mammals would address Woodroffe’s (1999) call for systematic approaches to dissection, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases in wild mammal populations.

Zipkin et al. (2010) published a population modeling technique bounded by logic interpretable by any researcher familiar with the conceptual framework and methods of statistical probability.  These authors provided a “primer” on the use of “Markov chains” for studies of disease dynamics in natural populations of animals.  Utilizing “typical” survey records of morbidity and mortality events, Markov chains estimate probabilities “of state [event, condition] transitions between consecutive time steps [spatial or temporal intervals]”.  This approach to quantitative ecology is a type of “epidemiological modeling” amenable to multilevel (hierarchical) modeling (Qian & Shen, 2007), whereby, for instance, M & M at the individual or population level could be quantitatively assessed with associated metrics at the same (limiting resource dispersions), lower (soil gradients, leaf litter dispersion) or higher (interspecific assemblages, variations in nutrient cycling) levels of abiotic and biotic organization..            

A facultative search of “disease, mammals” in seven widely-read American and British journals publishing a significant number of papers on basic ecology and conservation biology was conducted.  Several patterns were apparent.  First, though length of time since publication of first issues varied across journals and while “search” applications are probably structured differently, numbers of papers on topics related to mammalian disease indicated relative emphasis, as follows: Conservation Biology, 494 papers; Ecology, 418; Functional Ecology, 102; International Journal of Primatology, 230; Journal of Applied Ecology, 175; Journal of Ecology, 1; Journal of Mammalogy, 355; and, Oikos, 207.  Most articles addressing mammalian diseases focused on one type of disease (e.g., rabies, Lyme’s disease), on one category of pathology in a single or among related species (e.g., intestinal parasites) or, on parasite-host associations.  Most of the studies investigated disease effects at the population-level rather than epidemiological patterns across time and space from the individual to higher levels.  Specialized  wildlife biology and veterinary medicine journals, as well as, comprehensive texts and field manuals covering “ecology of pests and pathogens” or “field procedures for the study of diseases” address M and M of animals in Nature, as well.  My impression is that, among vertebrates, birds and bats have been studied more thoroughly than terrestrial mammals.     

Table 1 summarizes opportunistic observations of pathologies observed for 156 immobilized adult male and female mantled howler monkeys in Costa Rica.  Males were more likely to exhibit pathologies (25/36= 69%) compared to females (50/120= 42%), possible byproducts of risks from male-male competition and time- rather than energy-maximization (see, for example, Jones, 2005).  Considering the population as a whole, 51%  (80/156) of individuals in the sample exhibited obvious abnormalities.  Table 1 highlights the broad array of pathologies affecting individual mammals, suggesting that many field studies of M and M may be limited by their focus on one causative factor.  Several seemingly minor anomalies may, cumulatively, induce sub-lethal or lethal stress at one or more interacting, systemic levels, from biochemical (genetic, protein, e.g., de novo mutation) to physiological and developmental (e.g., sustained production of cortisol, increased infant mortality) to exposed phenotype (e.g., melanoma, bots), including, behavior (e.g., compromised defensive capacities, change [++, --] in baseline [presumably, optimal] interaction rates). 

The “collective intelligence” available to researchers and their collaborators from the proposed archive would facilitate multilevel epidemiological studies sensitive to variations in anthropogenic effects, including, capacities for local, regional, or global forecasting.  The proposed M and M archive would facilitate capabilities to deposit, assemble, process, share, manage, and diagnose its “multi-metric indices” for hypothesis-testing and effective conservation management in basic and applied ecology. 


*Drew Purves [Microsoft, UK] and his colleagues are working on a global model of body size x longevity [D. Purves, personal communication], part of a global ecosystem modeling project. The M and M archive proposed in the present blogpost would permit global modeling of [terrestrial mammal] female body size [FBS] x mortality or FBS x survivorship, based on the largest possible sample of life history data available.  Interpreting the logic of Purves' program and applying the presumed logic to the M and M archive advanced herein, the "international repository" of M and M data could be modeled for a comprehensive, general, statement of Life History phenomena, including, partitioning of its variability, using the simplifying proxy that variations in female body size [FBS] x mortality and/or FBS x survivorship relationships are governed by the same rules [1] within- and between-taxa, and [2] within- and across-levels of bioenergetic  and biogeochemical organization [scales and gradients].  Ideally, one would substitute a sufficiently-large sample of female age distributions [FAD] x mortality x environment [climate] and/or FAD x survivorship x environment [climate] for a synthesis of Life History trajectories sensitive to local and regional conditions. 

Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Norman J. Scott, Jr. (USFW, ret.) for making his raw data available to me. 

References

Ameca y Juárez, E.I., Mace, G.M., Cowlishaw, G., and Pettorelli, N. 2012. Natural population die-offs: causes and consequences for terrestrial mammals. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 27: 272-277.

Jones, C.B. 2005. Behavioral Flexibility in Primates: Causes and Consequences. Springer, New York.

Qian, S.S., and Shen, Z. 2007. Ecological applications of multilevel ANOVA. Ecology 88: 2489-2495.

Woodroffe, R. 1999. Managing disease threats to wild animals. Animal Conservation 2: 185-193.

Zipkin, E.F., Jennelle, C.S., and Cooch, E.G. 2010. A primer on the application of Markov Chains to the study of wildlife disease dynamics. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 1: 192-198.

Table

Table 1. Pathologies recorded opportunistically during immobilization of individually-marked and aged mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata palliata) at Hacienda La Pacífica, Cañas, Costa Rica, tropical dry forest habitats (riparian and deciduous).  Data were collected in 1976 by Norman J. Scott, Jr. (USFW, ret.) and his assistants, including the present author.  (N= 156: n=  120 females,  n= 36 males)

PATHOLOGY	TYPE-CHARACTER	#FEMALES	#MALES	SUB-TOTAL	TOTAL
APPARENT GENETIC ABMORMALITIES	Hirsuteness			5	5
PARASITES	Botfly Larvae	2	1	3	3
	Roundworms	11	5	16	16
	Tick	1		1	1
INFECTIONS	Herpes-like	2	0	2	2
	Lymphodenopathy	2	1	3	3
	Undiagnosed	2	1	3	3
SCABS	Fungus?, Eczema?, Herpes?	9	0	9	9
TESTICULAR ABNORMALITIES	?		2	2	2
APPARENT NUTRIENT DEFICIENCY	?	9	1	10	10
SCARS	?	5	8	13	13
BROKEN BONES	?	7	6	13	13
TOTAL		50	25	80	80

The Fate of Uncontacted Tribes & A Reply From Scott Wallace

Figure above: Public domain, Google.com

The Fate of Uncontacted Tribes

This post concerns alternative responses to the status and future of uncontacted, “unconquered”, indigenous Indians, particularly, those surviving in the tropical forests of South America.  In 1973 and 1976, I trekked into what I considered to be rigorous Latin American terrain to contact indigenous Indian groups.  One of the tribes I reached, in Costa Rica’s Talamancas mountain range, the BriBri, had been converted to Catholicism by missionaries living several miles from native lands.  A young woman carrying a baby less than one month old crossed my path on her way to find a priest.  Only men in this cultural group spoke Spanish.  Nonetheless, this proud young mother acknowledged me with a smile and without fear.  The second tribe, the Yagua, inhabited territory up the Rio Negro, rivulet of the Colombian Amazon, living in conditions appearing as close to original as one might expect several miles upriver from Leticia.  Until I read The Unconquered, by Scott Wallace, I did not realize how very tame my excursions had been.  Scott and 29 other men traveled through rainforest and tributaries in search of “People of the Arrow”, experiencing conditions that probably approximated those encountered by soldiers in Viet Nam.

The Brazilian goverment's, Department of Isolated Indians, National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), funded the flecheiros expedition, a venture having multiple functions.  On the one hand, Scott and a National Geographic Society photographer documented the natural and the human, the bizarre and the banal, the expertise and the foibles.  Sydney Possuelo, ex-official of the Brazilian government, and a charismatic, idealistic, virtually surreal, personality, is the central character of Scott’s drama.  Central casting was comprised primarily of acculturated men of Indian descent familiar with the Amazon’s rigors and requisite survival skills including expertise in building dugout canoes.  National Geographic’s involvement necessarily implied tacit or overt support of the expedition's goals and objectives, in particular, gathering information needed to insure the tribe’s apparent decision to remain independent of influences beyond their federally protected forests.

Possuelo’s, and, subsequently, Scott’s, dream of sustaining the pristine existence of this and other “unconquered” human groups is shared by conservation agencies such as Survival International, a non-governmental organization, operating in the UK since the late 1960s.  Supported politically and programmatically by the United Nations, and, financially, by private parties, Survival International and activists such as Possuelo, have built a firewall against proposals and, in some cases, direct efforts, to consider alternative, some would say, more realistic, strategies to insure protection of indigenous tribes’ rights to self-determination.  One of these oppositional voices is that of John Terborgh, a Duke University professor, and frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books.

Terborgh’s review (NYRB, April 6, 2012) of Scott’s book highlighted an ongoing conflict among those committed to the preservation of uncontacted tribes.  In brief, Terborgh believes that assimilation is inevitable and that indigenous groups need to be, and, deserve to be, assisted during their acculturation transitions.  Responding to a letter from Stephen Corry, Director of Survival International (NYRB, May 24, 2012), criticizing his review, Terborgh stated: “We live in a world of accelerating change…that leaves no good options for people who require isolation.”  I propose an alternative to these radically different approaches based on the philosophy and practice of community-based conservation projects.  This method would permit judicious induction of contact between conservationists and “pre-modern” tribes (Terborgh's term).

In a recent book chapter, former colleagues and I outlined a nine-stage model describing one bottom-up (“horizontal”) approach to forest management by indigenous and other local settlements.  The first stage involves contacting “community leaders and elders to "catylize" informal communication with village inhabitants, providing opportunities to openly and candidly discuss the significance of their resources and benefits to be gained from cooperative and participatory initiatives for conservation of their natural resources”.  This method can be modified for use with uncontacted tribes by a process similar to gradual, “systematic desensitization” of target groups to smaller and smaller distances between tribal members and a limited number of conservationists trained in the process.  Following procedures devised by clinical psychologists, the conservationists approaching an uncontacted unit would retreat when any sign of discomfort or aggression was observed.  This technique would be repeated at various intervals (days, or, possibly, weeks), until one or more member of the tribe moved in the conservationists’ direction, initiating contact. 

The desensitization treatment, a "successive approximation" approach, has a very high success rate when employed to mitigate human phobias (e.g., snakes, heights), and there is no a priori reason to expect failure during initial contact attempts with indigenous Indian groups.  The suggested approach is particularly advantageous since decisions to contact remain with members of a tribe, and details of the process can be adjusted to each situation.  Access to uncontacted indigenous tribes would require negotiation with regional and central government officials, as well as other stakeholders.  However, a formal proposal devised by one or more community-based organization would, at minimum, introduce a moderating and, potentially, mitigating, agency into what is currently a standoff between interested parties.  In addition, implementation of the negotiation process would forge relationships among several entities and their networks, both bottom-up, and, top-down, multi-scale associations that do not currently exist informally, or, formally.

 Horwich, R.H., Lyon, J., Bose, A. & Jones, C.B. (2012) Preserving biodiversity and ecosystems: catalyzing conservation contagion. In Deforestation Around the World (ed P. Montinho) pp 283-318 InTech, DOI: 10.5772/35435OA

http://www.communityconservation.org/publications/InTech-Preserving_biodiversity_and_ecosystems_catalyzing_conservation_contagion.pdf

Reply from Scott Wallace 1/12/2013:

Dear Clara,

I appreciate your thoughtful post, which I have now read. Thank you for
reading my book and for your comments.

Upon reading your recommendations, I was struck by how similar they are to
the methods traditionally employed by Brazil's Indian Protection Service,
SPI, and later by FUNAI through much of the 20th century, up until
Possuelo led the movement to reform the policy in the mid-1980s. SPI and
FUNAI contact teams did exactly what you prescribe, in establishing
contact posts in proximity to tribal clearings. Their efforts at contact
were often prolonged affairs that took months and even years to bring
about definitive contact.

I have written about this history in some detail in The Unconquered. These
were efforts guided by the same humanitarian principles that motivate your
own suggestions. SPI and FUNAI field agents (sertanistas) also believed
that "controlled contact" with their trained and idealistic personnel was
far preferable to the violence and mayhem that attended forced contact by
settlers, loggers, gold prospectors, road builders along an inexorably
advancing frontier.

Possuelo and most of his colleagues found that their efforts in the end
were messy affairs that inevitably resulted in high rates of mortality
despite their best intentions. Perhaps there is a better way, but I don't
think we've found it. The kind of approach you describe would require far
more resources than any government or international body seems to have the
will to devote to the protection of these populations. Contact in the deep
jungle is a complicated proposition, requiring far more logistical support
than you might imagine. Still, I think that one of Possuelo's primary
objectives is to buy time to figure out better solutions than any that
have so far been elaborated or put into practice. The debate is an
important one.

Thanks very much,

Scott

Hyperlink to Wallace's The Unconquered webpage:

www.theunconqueredbook.com

Amazon.com site for The Unconquered:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Unconquered-Search-Amazons-Uncontacted/dp/0307462978/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
.