Keeping the kids at home can limit the persistence of contagious pathogens in social animals

Lucile Marescot; Mathias Franz; Sarah Benhaiem; Heribert Hofer; Marion East; Stephanie Kramer-Schadt

The complete predominance of such sealed groups in the host population with ORC after 379 several weeks was associated with epidemic fade-out ( figure 5 (b), figure 4 (b) ). We found 380 that ORC had a particularly positive effect for the host population in terms of epidemic fade-381 out when R0 was elevated (e.g. equivalent to measles infection in humans, where R0 ~ 18), 382 and to hosts with high fertility rates and small group sizes ( figure 3 ). This may be because the 383 high production of offspring in small groups may further accelerate the formation of sealed 384 groups and hence pathogen fade-out. 385 We investigated a specific form of network modularity, also called 'community structure' The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.11.036806 doi: bioRxiv preprint social network metrics during the epidemic ─ as modularity or centrality can only represent a 404 snapshot of the community structure at one point in time. 405 In a disease management context, individuals with high contact rates to their group members 406 are often targeted for vaccination to control the spread of infectious diseases (Carne et al. Table 2 for other examples). Our 427 results might also be applicable to cases where offspring are not stationary yet potentially 428 . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license author/funder. It is made available under a The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.11.036806 doi: bioRxiv preprint protected from between-group contacts by other types of 'barriers', such as behavioural ones. 429 This might include territorial space use of adults, e.g. troop formation in gorillas Gorilla g. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.11.036806 doi: bioRxiv preprint expect our results to hold if immunity against the pathogen is maintained for several years. 454 The impact of the length of the protective period of immunization (lifelong or less) could also 455 be tested specifically with our model. 456 To conclude, our results show that the prolonged care of juveniles in communal nurseries or 457 similar structures can reduce disease persistence in host populations of group-living species. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.11.036806 doi: bioRxiv preprint COMPETING INTERESTS 477 We declare we have no competing interests. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.11.036806 doi: bioRxiv preprint parameter considered. For instance, the first split at the top of the tree results in two main 697 branches: the left one corresponds to R0 < 7.5 and the right branch corresponds to R0 ≥ 7.5. 698 The values at the terminal nodes indicate differences in epidemic fade-out probabilities. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.11.036806 doi: bioRxiv preprint The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.11.036806 doi: bioRxiv preprint The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.11.036806 doi: bioRxiv preprint The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.1