Welcome to our blog. We will be using this space to share our research program with you! This project is aimed at understanding how disease and other threats impact social species. We are studying the banded mongoose - this species is social and occurs across protected and unprotected landscapes - allowing us to ask important questions  including how we affect social species and their continued survival.


Banded mongoose are small (<2 kg) group-living, territorial carnivores. They occur in groups or troops that can number 8-65 individuals in our study area. This species has been the focus of a long-term study in Chobe, Botswana since 2000 where we have developed a field research laboratory and work collaboratively with the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife, and Tourism. Banded mongoose are infected with Mycobacterium mungi, a novel emerging M. tuberculosis complex pathogen that appears to be directly transmitted through a non-respiratory route. Endemic disease in this system allows us to investigate our study questions, identify theory and knowledge, as well as dynamical modeling approaches that have broad application across a larger class of systems where group-living may make some species more vulnerable to disease and other sources of mortality.