Japanese macaques at Jigokudani Monkey Park in Nagano, Japan
Bathing in hot springs is not just for warming snow monkeys, or Japanese macaques. According to a new study, they are essentially eating away at your parasites and gut microbiome.
Japanese macaques (macaque fuscata)colloquially known as snow monkeys, are known for diving into steaming hot springs during winter. It is easy to see that this helps keep warm in cold temperatures.
However, in a new study, the results of which were published on Monday in the journal Primatesa team of researchers from Kyoto University has now discovered that this iconic behavior do more than just keeping the monkeys warm.
“Bathing in hot springs is one of the most unusual behaviors observed in non-human primates”, states the first author of the study, Abdullah Eternalin a statement published on .
Researchers suspected that baths could play a significant role in influence on associated parasites to monkeys and their microbial communities.
The team traveled to the Snow Monkey Park, in Nagano Prefecture, in central Japan, to analyze the behavior of these primates. Over the course of two winters, researchers followed a group of female monkeys, comparing individuals who showered regularly in the hot springs with those who didn’t.
Combining behavioral observations, parasite monitoring and sequencing the intestinal microbiome, the team tested whether baths influence the holobiont of monkeys, an integrated biological system consisting of the host and its associated microbes and parasites.
The results revealed that bathing in hot springs subtly remodels the monkeys’ relationships with parasites and intestinal microbes.
Bathing monkeys showed changed distributions of lice and intestinal bacteria, suggesting that submerging in water can disrupt activity of lice or the laying of eggs.
The team also observed subtle changes in gut microbes. Overall microbiome diversity was similar between those who bathed and those who did not, but several bacterial genera were more abundant in individuals who did not bathe.
And despite concerns that shared hot springs could increase exposure to intestinal parasitesthe monkeys that took a bath did not present rates or intensities of infection higher parasitic infections.
The study demonstrates how behavior can moldar o holobionte animal and act as an important animal health engineand highlights the complexity of the links between behavior and health in wild animals, suggesting that bathing in hot springs influences some host-organism relationships while leaving others unchanged.
“The behavior is often treated as a response to the environment,” says Langgeng, “but our results show that this behavior doesn’t just affect thermoregulation or stress: also changes the way monkeys interact with parasites and microbes that live on them and within them.”
This study is among the first to establish a connection between natural animal behavior and changes in both ectoparasites and the intestinal microbiome in a wild primate.
By demonstrating that behavior can selectively shape components of the holobiont, the investigation has implications for understanding the evolution of animal behaviors that influence health and for interpreting microbiome variation in social animals.
Furthermore, this study draws parallels with the way human cultural practices, such as bathing, affect microbial exposure and thus It also challenges the assumption that shared water sources necessarily increase the risk of disease, at least under natural conditions.
