What animal self-medication in the wild can teach us about antiparasitic and other phytotherapies for humans and domestic animals?

Dietary selection is an important process for the maintenance of health homeostasis. From the potential plants available in one’s environment, choices are made to assure a proper balance of nutrients for energy, growth, maintenance, reproduction. Plants are also sometimes selected for their medicinal properties. In response to parasite infection for example, species across the animal kingdom have evolved a variety of means by which they counteract these affronts to their health homeostasis. Four basic modes for achieving this are: 1) behavioral avoidance or reduction of disease transmission: 2) ingestion of items with a prophylactic affect: 3) ingestion of substances of direct therapeutic value against pathogens: and 4) external application of these substances to the body or living area for the control of disease transmitting invertebrates. Traditionally, humans have also looked to the behavior of sick animals for insights into the uses of medicinal plants for themselves and their livestock. This rapidly growing field of research is known as animal self-medication. The study of self-medicative behavior and the plants used by animals in the wild is a promising bio-rational for expanding and advancing the use of phytotherapy in a veterinary setting for domestic animals.

講者: Dr. Michael Alan Huffman (Associate Professor, Wildlife Research Center, Inuyama Campus, Kyoto University, Japan)

主持人: Dr. Wen-Chin Yang

時間:2023/10/02 11:00 AM

地點:農業科技大樓1樓A134演講廳