February
9, 2016
Researchers
from the Centre d'Écologie Fonctionnelle et Évolutive (CNRS/Université de
Montpellier/Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3/EPHE) have shown that
chimpanzees infected with toxoplasmosis are attracted by the urine of their
natural predators, leopards, but not by urine from other large felines. The
study, published on 8 February 2016 in Current Biology, suggests that
parasite manipulation by Toxoplasma gondii is specific to each host. It fuels
an ongoing debate on the origin of behavioral modifications observed in humans
infected with toxoplasmosis: they probably go back to a time when our ancestors
were still preyed upon by large felines.
Parasites
such as those that cause toxoplasmosis take
various pathways, some of them complex, in order to develop into their adult
form and reproduce in a so-called definitive host. These pathways may include
stages consisting in the infection of an intermediary host. In order to pass
from one such host to another, some parasites are able to induce behavioral
changes in their hosts. However, this process, known as parasite manipulation,
is rarely observed in mammals.
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