Speaker
Description
Agricultural expansion into natural habitats and unsustainable practices, like those caused by oil palm cultivation in Southeast Asia, harm biodiversity. Wildlife in these disturbed areas faces threats from humans, predators, and pesticides, but how these factors affect their health is less understood. We studied wild southern pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) living at the interface between rainforest and oil palm plantation in Malaysia. They enter the plantation daily to forage for oil palm fruits and rats, resulting in regular exposure to herbicides. Long-term data suggest an extremely high infant mortality rate of 57%, potentially causing an overall decline in this population. Our previous findings indicated that the risk of infant death was significantly elevated after prolonged maternal inter-birth intervals and in first-time mothers. We suspected that herbicides may accumulate in the mothers’ bodies and pass to fetuses, thereby affecting infant survival. Here, we aim to detect herbicides in the plantation environment (i.e., water) and macaques’ food (i.e., fruits and rats), and to identify their evoked changes in macaque body odour. To do so, we collected water, macaque and rat urine, and odour/volatile samples from macaques, rats, and oil palm fruits in three conditions: before pesticide treatment at the plantation, one week after, and three weeks after treatment. Using liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry, herbicides were detected only infrequently in water and macaque urine, with a slight increase in detections in macaques following pesticide application. In contrast, rats (living permanently in the plantations) consistently showed high herbicide loads, suggesting accumulation and a possible indirect exposure pathway to macaques. Additionally, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry revealed changes in the macaques’ chemical profiles following herbicide exposure, indicating metabolomic changes caused by pesticides. Overall, our work emphasizes the importance of reducing pesticide use in agricultural landscapes to protect biodiversity against the adverse effects of chemical pollution.
| Status Group | Senior Scientist |
|---|---|
| Poster Presentation Option | No, I prefer to present only as a talk. |
