Ebola has profound effects on wildlife population dynamics

This approach requires long-term monitoring of wildlife populations to understand the responses of populations to emerging changes in the environment, according to the Journal of Animal Ecology study.

"Along with the decrease in survival and in reproduction, Ebola outbreak perturbed social dynamics in gorilla populations. During outbreak, transfers of both males and females between social units increased. Some adult females have been observed transferring to non-breeding groups, which is unusual in non-affected population. Although, six year after outbreak, most of vital rates returned to pre epidemic rate, recovery of the population is slow, especially because no compensatory immigration occurred after outbreak indicating that the neighboring populations might have been also affected," said Dr. Pascaline Le Gouar, senior author of the study.