Jan F. Gogarten | Kibale Ecology and Conservation Project

Disease Ecology

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Description and Project Aims

Animals evolved into a world dominated by microbes. Animals maintain relationships with many of these microorganisms, but in some cases they can have a detrimental impact on an animal’s fitness. Our rapidly changing world is creating new interactions between species, including with humans, and creates new opportunities for transmission and the ecology of pathogens. Indeed, most emerging pathogens in human’s and their livestock have their origins in wildlife, and understanding what factors increase the risk of spillover into humans is an essential component of improving prevention efforts. This project aims to provide data towards understanding the ecology of pathogens in their natural hosts, in their rapidly changing natural ecosystems, and ultimately to understand changing human contact to wildlife. We broadly apply an evolutionary community ecology framework for this work and collaborate closely with the Uganda Wildlife Authority.

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environmental DNA

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Project Description and Aims

The emerging field of eDNA targets the traces animals leave in the environment and leverages high-throughput sequencing technologies to generate sequence information about hosts and microbes at local scales. The eDNA toolkit we employ has already revealed insights about species distributions and unknown trophic links between species and has the potential to contribute to biodiversity monitoring efforts and disease ecology. We are excited about building capacities in Uganda to deploy these tools, again working closely with the Uganda Wildlife Authority.

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Primate and Mammal Population Dynamics.

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Project Description and Aims

The vast majority of conservation projects do not measure how they improve biodiversity. We want Kibale to be different. Thus, we are monitoring the relative abundance of the common diurnal primates, ungulates, and elephants throughout the park. Some of our monitoring builds on the work of others and starts in 1970 making our data some of the longest in existence for tropical systems. Park wide animal populations are generally increasing – a very positive message for conservation.

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Colin Chapman, Dipto Sarkar, Jan Gogarten, Patrick Omeja, Urs Kalbitzer

Jan F. Gogarten

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Jan F. Gogarten is a disease ecologist leading the Evolutionary Community Ecology Research Group at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health in Germany. He started working in Kibale National Park in 2011 as a PhD student. His work involves a diverse set of molecular tools, including the extensive use of environmental DNA to study the distributions of animals and their pathogens, as well as establish trophic links to understand transmission.