Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic
Barbora Cervena
Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic
Liesbeth Frias
Programme in Emerging Infectious Diseases, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore
Benoit Goossens
Danau Girang Field Centre, c/o Sabah Wildlife Department, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Organisms and Environment Division, Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
Hideo Hasegawa
Department of Biomedicine, Faculty of Medicine, Oita University, Oita, Japan
Kenneth Keuk
Wildlife Research Center, Kyoto University, Inuyama Campus, Inuyama, Japan
Abdullah Langgeng
Wildlife Research Center, Kyoto University, Inuyama Campus, Inuyama, Japan
Kasia Majewski
Wildlife Research Center, Kyoto University, Inuyama Campus, Inuyama, Japan
Takashi Matsumoto
Department of Environmental and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Oita University, Japan
Keiko Matsuura
Department of Biomedicine, Faculty of Medicine, Oita University, Oita, Japan
Renata Mendonça
Wildlife Research Center, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan Centre for Functional Ecology – Science for People & the Planet, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Munehiro Okamoto
Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior (EHUB), Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
Steve Peter
Kulliyah of Science, Department of Biotechnology, International Islamic University of Malaysia, Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia
Klara J. Petrzelkova
Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences, České Budějovice, Czech Republic Liberec Zoo, Liberec, Czech Republic
Symphorosa Sipangkui
Sabah Wildlife Department, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
Zhihong Xu
Wildlife Research Center, Kyoto University, Inuyama Campus, Inuyama, Japan
Barbora Pafco
Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic
Andrew J.J. MacIntosh
Wildlife Research Center, Kyoto University, Inuyama Campus, Inuyama, Japan
With many non-human primates (NHPs) showing continued population decline, there is an ongoing need to better understand their ecology and conservation threats. One such threat is the risk of disease, with various bacterial, viral and parasitic infections previously reported to have damaging consequences for NHP hosts. Strongylid nematodes are one of the most commonly reported parasitic infections in NHPs. Current knowledge of NHP strongylid infections is restricted by their typical occurrence as mixed infections of multiple genera, which are indistinguishable through traditional microscopic approaches. Here, modern metagenomics approaches were applied for insight into the genetic diversity of strongylid infections in South-East and East Asian NHPs. We hypothesized that strongylid nematodes occur in mixed communities of multiple taxa, dominated by Oesophagostomum, matching previous findings using single-specimen genetics. Utilizing the Illumina MiSeq platform, ITS-2 strongylid metabarcoding was applied to 90 samples from various wild NHPs occurring in Malaysian Borneo and Japan. A clear dominance of Oesophagostomum aculeatum was found, with almost all sequences assigned to this species. This study suggests that strongylid communities of Asian NHPs may be less species-rich than those in African NHPs, where multi-genera communities are reported. Such knowledge contributes baseline data, assisting with ongoing monitoring of health threats to NHPs.
