These animals are better at social distancing than we are.
For many humans, social distancing feels like the most unnatural thing in the world, but in other parts of the natural world, it is the norm.
To see if animals behaved differently around infected animals to protect themselves from the disease, researchers have conducted studies in the past two decades.
“It was clear that they were using the behavior when they were given the option of being around an infected person, they avoided that infected person,” he said.
Kiesecker placed a pathogen-infected tadpole around other healthy tadpoles. The tadpoles could smell the chemicals from the sick tadpole. Detecting that he was infected, the healthy stayed away, according to Kiesecker’s findings.
During part of the study, Kiesecker also tested keeping a healthy tadpole close to an infected one.
“When we forced them to stay close and then looked at whether they were infected or not, the likelihood of them becoming infected increased based on proximity to the infected individual,” said Kiesecker.
Tadpoles are not the only animals that physically distance themselves from diseased members of their own species.
Nathalie Stroeymeyt, a professor at the University of Bristol School of Biological Sciences, observed when ants with a fungal disease were introduced into a healthy ant colony.
After observing the colonies once the infected ants were introduced, Stroeymeyt discovered that the unexposed ants were kept away from the exposed ants and that the healthy ants were also kept away from each other.
“We believe this is a proactive measure to decrease the risk of epidemic transmission through the colony, as opposed to the form of proactive social distancing implemented in our societies to decrease the risk of Covid-19 transmission,” said Stroeymeyt.
Do not stand So Close to Me
“Healthy lobsters can detect and prevent diseased lobsters by using chemical signals in the urine of infected lobsters,” said Behringer. “They don’t even need to see the infected lobster to know they should avoid it.”
Unlike ants, unhealthy lobsters did not change their behavior. The diseased lobster followed the healthy lobster to a cave and the healthy lobster would be the one to leave, Behringer said. Once the healthy lobster was gone, the unhealthy lobster went on, and became a set of “lobster musical chairs” until the sun came up and a lobster claimed the cave for the day.
The lessons learned from these animals are not unique to their own species.
Epidemiologists use studies like these, Kiesecker said, to better understand how diseases spread among other species, including humans. This allows people to “alter and change their behavior” to decrease the chance of infection, he said.
“Behavior is important,” said Kiesecker.
“Tadpoles can’t see the news (and) can’t read the news articles that tell them this. People can.”
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