Gastrointestinal parasites in crop raiding and wild foraging Papio anubis in Nigeria

We compared parasitic infection in a crop-raiding and a wild-foraging troop of olive baboons, Papio anubis, in Gashaka Gumti National Park, Nigeria, to quantify how crop raiding may have influenced primate-parasite interactions. We recovered gastrointestinal parasites from fecal samples from all adult individuals in both troops and processed them via formal-ether sedimentation. We compared parasitic species richness, prevalence, output, and load across troops. We recovered 9 parasite taxa. The wild-foraging troop had a significantly higher mean output than the crop-raiding troop for Physaloptera sp., Trichuris sp., and also a significantly higher total helminth load. The crop-raiding troop had a significantly higher mean output for the protozoan Balantidium coli and also showed a higher parasitic species richness, with 9 species recovered compared to the 7 recorded for the wild-foraging individuals. The changes in nutritional intake, behavior, and human proximity caused by crop raiding may have important epidemiological impacts on wild primate populations, and the nature of such impacts may vary across different taxa of parasites.