Contact in context: How land use histories, sociocultural practices, and animal profiles shape human-animal contact and zoonotic pathogen exposure in a fragmented forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo
6 affiliations
- 1CEFE, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, Montpellier, France
- 2Eco-anthropologie, MNHN, CNRS, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
- 3MIVEGEC, IRD, CNRS, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France
- 4ONG Mbou-Mon-Tour, Nkala, Democratic Republic of the Congo
- 5Unité de Virologie, Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo
- 6Anthropology and Ecology of Disease Emergence Unit, Institut Pasteur-Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
Abstract
Pathogenic spillovers from animals into humans have catalyzed epidemics throughout history. They result from multiple factors. One such factor, human-animal contact, remains poorly understood. Current studies often neglect variability in human-animal engagements across ecological zones and the broader processes bringing people, animals, and pathogens into engagement. We investigated factors and longer-term processes shaping human-animal contacts and indirectly, potential exposures to zoonotic pathogens in a fragmentated forest. We conducted our mixed-methods investigation in three villages along an ecological gradient of forest fragmentation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a hotspot of biodiversity and disease emergence. Twenty-four village participants recorded their daily activities and contacts with animal species over five months. We developed a cluster analysis to categorize classes of animals according to type and frequency of contact and conducted transects to estimate animal species abundance according to village proximity. We then tested the influence of species abundance, human activities, gender, and village on contact frequency. We also undertook ethnographic and ethnohistorical interviews and observations to explore changing human-animal relations. Participants had physical and environmental contact with 61 animal species, which clustered into three classes according to their contact profiles. Relative abundance of animal species was associated with contact frequency, but its effects were weak. Our ethnohistorical and anthropological analyses, however, situated these contacts within their longer-term processes and sociocultural practices that our models could not capture. The animals with which participants had most frequent contact were those whose abundance and accessibility resulted from decades of land use change and hunting intensification. Several abundant species were rarely contacted because local categorizations of animals as ngeyi (“disgusting”) suppressed contacts that proximity alone would have predicted. Human-animal contact profiles are thus historically produced and socioculturally mediated; they cannot be derived exclusively from species ecology, land cover, or demographic variables. Author summary: Pathogenic spillovers from animals into humans have catalyzed epidemics throughout history. These spillovers result from many factors, although one, human-animal contact, is poorly understood. Studies of contact rarely account for the variability of human-animal interactions or for the longer-term changes shaping engagements between people, animals, and pathogens. Our mixed-methods study explored factors and longer-term processes affecting human-animal contacts and indirectly, potential risks of exposure to zoonotic pathogens in a fragmented forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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BibTeX
@article{duda2026contact,
title = {{Contact in context: How land use histories, sociocultural practices, and animal profiles shape human-animal contact and zoonotic pathogen exposure in a fragmented forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo}},
author = {Romain Duda and Victor Narat and Thibaut Langlois and Robert Monfura and Marc Allassonnière Tang and Placide Mbala and Claude Monghiemo and Tamara Giles-Vernick},
journal = {PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1371/journal.pntd.0013823},
url = {https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0013823},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Contact in context: How land use histories, sociocultural practices, and animal profiles shape human-animal contact and zoonotic pathogen exposure in a fragmented forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo
AU - Romain Duda
AU - Victor Narat
AU - Thibaut Langlois
AU - Robert Monfura
AU - Marc Allassonnière Tang
AU - Placide Mbala
AU - Claude Monghiemo
AU - Tamara Giles-Vernick
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/26
JO - PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
DO - 10.1371/journal.pntd.0013823
UR - https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0013823
AB - Pathogenic spillovers from animals into humans have catalyzed epidemics throughout history. They result from multiple factors. One such factor, human-animal contact, remains poorly understood. Current studies often neglect variability in human-animal engagements across ecological zones and the broader processes bringing people, animals, and pathogens into engagement. We investigated factors and longer-term processes shaping human-animal contacts and indirectly, potential exposures to zoonotic pathogens in a fragmentated forest. We conducted our mixed-methods investigation in three villages along an ecological gradient of forest fragmentation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a hotspot of biodiversity and disease emergence. Twenty-four village participants recorded their daily activities and contacts with animal species over five months. We developed a cluster analysis to categorize classes of animals according to type and frequency of contact and conducted transects to estimate animal species abundance according to village proximity. We then tested the influence of species abundance, human activities, gender, and village on contact frequency. We also undertook ethnographic and ethnohistorical interviews and observations to explore changing human-animal relations. Participants had physical and environmental contact with 61 animal species, which clustered into three classes according to their contact profiles. Relative abundance of animal species was associated with contact frequency, but its effects were weak. Our ethnohistorical and anthropological analyses, however, situated these contacts within their longer-term processes and sociocultural practices that our models could not capture. The animals with which participants had most frequent contact were those whose abundance and accessibility resulted from decades of land use change and hunting intensification. Several abundant species were rarely contacted because local categorizations of animals as ngeyi (“disgusting”) suppressed contacts that proximity alone would have predicted. Human-animal contact profiles are thus historically produced and socioculturally mediated; they cannot be derived exclusively from species ecology, land cover, or demographic variables. Author summary: Pathogenic spillovers from animals into humans have catalyzed epidemics throughout history. These spillovers result from many factors, although one, human-animal contact, is poorly understood. Studies of contact rarely account for the variability of human-animal interactions or for the longer-term changes shaping engagements between people, animals, and pathogens. Our mixed-methods study explored factors and longer-term processes affecting human-animal contacts and indirectly, potential risks of exposure to zoonotic pathogens in a fragmented forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
SN - 1935-2735
SN - 1935-2727
ER -