A FIELD GUIDE TO STUDY WILDLIFE CANCER

Giraudeau, Mathieu and Vincze, Orsolya and Thomas, Frédéric (2022) A FIELD GUIDE TO STUDY WILDLIFE CANCER. Journal of Animal Ecology. ISSN 0021-8790 (Submitted)

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Abstract

1. The last few years have seen a surge of interest from field ecologists and evolutionary biologists to study wildlife cancer, contributing to the One Health Approach, which investigates health issues at the intersection of people, wild and domestic animals, together with their changing environments. This emerging field of wildlife cancer is currently constrained by methodological limitations in detecting early stages of cancer using non-invasive sampling. In addition, the suspected differential susceptibility and also resistance of species to cancer often makes the choice of a model species difficult for field biologists. 2.Here, we provide a review of currently available methods to detect, measure, and quantify animal neoplasia in the wild, as well as the methodological limitations to be overcome to develop novel approaches inspired by diagnostic techniques used in human medicine. 3. Cancer rates appear to be rising globally, currently being attributed to social and economic developmental factors, including exposure to pollutants and the aging of the human population. The methodology we propose here will help to understand and hopefully fight this major disease by generating general knowledge about cancer, variaton in its rates, tumour-suppressor mechanisms across species as well as its link to life-history and physiological characters. herefore, this will have direct relevance to public health. Moreover, this is expected to provide key information about cancer in wildlife, which is a top-priority due to the accelerated anthropogenic change of the past decades that might favor cancer progression in wild populations.

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