Disgust in animals and the application of disease avoidance to wildlife management and conservation

Disgust is an adaptive system hypothesized to have evolved to reduce the risk of becoming sick. It is associated with behavioural, cognitive and physiological responses tuned to allow animals to avoid and/or get rid of parasites, pathogens and toxins. Little is known about the mechanisms and outcomes of disease avoidance in wild animals. Furthermore, given the escalation of negative human‐wildlife interactions, the translation of such knowledge into the design of evolutionarily relevant conservation and wildlife management strategies is becoming urgent. Contemporary methods in animal ecology and related fields, using direct (sensory cues) or indirect (remote sensing technologies and machine learning) means, provide a flexible toolbox for testing and applying disgust at individual and collective levels. In this review/perspective paper, we provide an empirical framework for testing the adaptive function of disgust and its associated disease avoidance behaviours across species, from the least to the most social, in different habitats. We predict various trade‐offs to be at play depending on the social system and ecology of the species. We propose five contexts in which disgust‐related avoidance behaviours could be applied, including endangered species rehabilitation, invasive species, crop‐raiding, urban pests and animal tourism. We highlight some of the perspectives and current challenges of testing disgust in the wild. In particular, we recommend future studies to consider together disease, predation and competition risks. We discuss the ethics associated with disgust experiments in the above contexts. Finally, we promote the creation of a database gathering disease avoidance evidence in animals and its applications. Résumé Le dégoût est un système adaptatif supposé avoir évolué afin de réduire le risque de tomber malade. Il est associé à des réponses comportementales, cognitives et physiologiques adaptées pour permettre aux animaux d'éviter et/ou de se débarrasser des parasites, pathogènes et toxines. On sait peu de choses sur les mécanismes et les conséquences de l'évitement des maladies chez les animaux sauvages. Étant donné l'escalade des interactions négatives entre humains et faune, la traduction de ces connaissances dans la conception de stratégies de conservation et de gestion de la faune – prenant en considération l'évolution des espèces – devient urgente. Les méthodes contemporaines en écologie animale et dans les domaines connexes, utilisant des