Concerning behavioral changes seen in chimps may hold clues to past and future pandemics

Western Uganda’s Budongo Forest is lush and busy with life. Chimpanzees, black-and-white colobus monkeys, red duikers, and lots of bats move through its green corridors every day.

For years, they tapped a dependable source of minerals – sodium, potassium, magnesium, and phosphorus – from the common palm Raphia farinifera. When those palms died and rotted, they turned into a “mineral buffet.”

Then people cut most of those palms between 2006 and 2012 to use their fibers as strong cords for drying tobacco leaves. The buffet vanished.

By 2017, trail cameras recorded a new habit. The same chimps and other animals began eating bat guano piled beneath a hollow roost tree. It wasn’t accidental; they returned to the same spot repeatedly.

Guano is rich in the same minerals the palms once provided. When the palms were removed, the animals needed a fallback. They found it under a bat roost, of all places.

Chimps, bats, and coronavirus

Researchers collected guano samples and tested them for key elements. Phosphorus stood out, along with other minerals needed for healthy bodies. They also analyzed genetic material in the guano using metagenomics.

Metagenomics is like shuffling pages from every book in a library into one pile, then letting a computer figure out which books, and which chapters, are present. In this case, the “books” are different organisms and viruses.

The tests found genetic traces of 27 eukaryotic viruses. Among them was a previously unknown betacoronavirus from the Hibecovirus group.

Coronaviruses include many strains – some infect humans, while others infect bats or other mammals.

Finding a novel member of that family in guano eaten by chimpanzees and antelopes indicates a previously underappreciated exposure route.

Animals and changing landscapes

Disease “spillover” into people often begins far from any clinic. The first step is outdoors, where animals feed, lick minerals, and gather at reliable resources.

Change the landscape, and you change where animals go and what they eat. That can also change which microbes they meet. Here, a local economic need – drying tobacco – pushed tree removal.

That led to fewer mineral sources, which led animals to a new source rich in nutrients but also crowded with viral traces.

There’s a clear chain see here: economics; tree removal; mineral shortage; guano eating; viral exposure.

The study did not report any new illnesses in the observed animals. Exposure does not equal infection, but the bridge now exists.

Once wildlife crosses it, the next crossings – through hunting, carcass handling, or shared spaces – can bring people into the picture.

Chimps get minerals from bat guano

Animals seek minerals for nerve signals, bone strength, fluid balance, and enzyme function. In many tropical forests, soils are low in available sodium and phosphorus.

Herbivores and omnivores compensate by visiting natural licks, gnawing on decayed wood, or seeking out salty plants.

Raphia palms filled that need in Budongo, and their loss rewired foraging behavior.

Cameras did not capture a one-time incident; they documented a pattern that persisted for years. Behavior shifted because the menu changed.

Guano’s nutrient load helps explain that shift. Bats concentrate minerals in their droppings because they eat nutrient-rich diets and roost in dense groups.

Piles form under favored trees. For a mineral-limited primate or antelope, that pile is a predictable resource. It is also a busy meeting point for microbes.

27 viruses discovered

Twenty-seven eukaryotic viruses detected in one set of samples provide a wide snapshot of what moves through a bat roost. The detected betacoronavirus within Hibecovirus adds a piece to a larger map of bat viruses.

It does not mean a spillover to humans is underway. It means chimps and other wildlife in that forest had repeated contact with a mix of bat viruses they might not have encountered in the same way before the palms were cut.

That matters because contact frequency and dose help determine risk.

If chimps return to the same bat guano pile day after day, the contact rate rises. Also, if several species share the pile, viruses have more hosts to try. More hosts can mean more chances for a virus to test its limits.

Importance of “upstream” thinking

When you can point to the first link in a risk chain, you can snip it. In Budongo, the first link wasn’t bats or chimps. It was the need for strong fibers to dry tobacco leaves.

A substitute material for farmers would have protected the palms.

Keeping Raphia palms standing would have kept the original mineral source in place. That would have reduced the chimps’ need to eat bat guano and lowered viral exposure at the same time.

This is “upstream” thinking – asking what small, practical choices prevent risky behavior later.

It costs far less to keep a tree than to manage a disease threat after it grows. It also respects local livelihoods by offering workable alternatives rather than finger-pointing.

Keeping chimps from eating bat guano

Bats provide pollination, seed dispersal, and insect control. Primates and antelopes shape plant communities. None of this story calls for culling or fear.

The fix isn’t “blame bats” or “blame chimps.” The fix is routine: support materials and policies that keep key trees in place, protect mineral sources, and maintain natural feeding options.

That approach fits a One Health framework in which human health, animal health, and healthy forests reinforce one another.

When forests hold their structure, animals don’t need to invent workarounds. They can then stick to their usual diets, resulting in fewer viral contact points.

Finally, when contact points shrink, officials and communities can focus their energy on known hot spots rather than chasing new ones.

What it all means

Different places will have different first links. Logging, mining, road building, and urban growth can shift animal diets and movement in subtle ways.

You don’t need a huge change to create new contact points. Sometimes all it takes is removing one common tree that quietly supported many species.

The lesson from Budongo is practical: check how land-use choices alter nutrition and behavior, then shore up the missing pieces before problems spread.

That’s prevention with a small footprint. It’s also a lot of constant and diligent work.

Map the resources animals depend on. Keep those resources available. Offer replacements when local economies need them. Track how behavior changes when landscapes change.

If a new bridge between species appears, remove the first plank.

The full study was published in the journal Nature Communications Biology.

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