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Measuring Hair Cortisol Concentrations to Assess the Effect of Anthropogenic Impacts on Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)
Non-human primates face major environmental changes due to increased human impacts all over the world. Although some species are able to survive in certain landscapes with anthropogenic impact, their long-term viability and fitness may be decreased due to chronic stress. Here we assessed long-term s...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4822880/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27050418 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0151870 |
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author | Carlitz, Esther H. D. Miller, Robert Kirschbaum, Clemens Gao, Wei Hänni, Daniel C. van Schaik, Carel P. |
author_facet | Carlitz, Esther H. D. Miller, Robert Kirschbaum, Clemens Gao, Wei Hänni, Daniel C. van Schaik, Carel P. |
author_sort | Carlitz, Esther H. D. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Non-human primates face major environmental changes due to increased human impacts all over the world. Although some species are able to survive in certain landscapes with anthropogenic impact, their long-term viability and fitness may be decreased due to chronic stress. Here we assessed long-term stress levels through cortisol analysis in chimpanzee hair obtained from sleeping nests in northwestern Uganda, in order to estimate welfare in the context of ecotourism, forest fragmentation with human-wildlife conflicts, and illegal logging with hunting activity (albeit not of primates), compared with a control without human contact or conflict. Concerning methodological issues, season [F(2,129) = 37.4, p < 0.0001, r(2) = 0.18] and the age of nests [F(2,178) = 20.3, p < 0.0001, r(2) = 0.11] significantly predicted hair cortisol concentrations (HCC). With regard to effects of anthropogenic impacts, our results neither showed elevation of HCC due to ecotourism, nor due to illegal logging compared to their control groups. We did, however, find significantly increased HCC in the fragment group compared to chimpanzees living in a nearby intact forest [F(1,88) = 5.0, p = 0.03, r(2) = 0.20]. In conclusion, our results suggest that hair cortisol analysis is a powerful tool that can help understanding the impact of anthropogenic disturbances on chimpanzee well-being and could be applied to other great ape species. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4822880 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-48228802016-04-22 Measuring Hair Cortisol Concentrations to Assess the Effect of Anthropogenic Impacts on Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Carlitz, Esther H. D. Miller, Robert Kirschbaum, Clemens Gao, Wei Hänni, Daniel C. van Schaik, Carel P. PLoS One Research Article Non-human primates face major environmental changes due to increased human impacts all over the world. Although some species are able to survive in certain landscapes with anthropogenic impact, their long-term viability and fitness may be decreased due to chronic stress. Here we assessed long-term stress levels through cortisol analysis in chimpanzee hair obtained from sleeping nests in northwestern Uganda, in order to estimate welfare in the context of ecotourism, forest fragmentation with human-wildlife conflicts, and illegal logging with hunting activity (albeit not of primates), compared with a control without human contact or conflict. Concerning methodological issues, season [F(2,129) = 37.4, p < 0.0001, r(2) = 0.18] and the age of nests [F(2,178) = 20.3, p < 0.0001, r(2) = 0.11] significantly predicted hair cortisol concentrations (HCC). With regard to effects of anthropogenic impacts, our results neither showed elevation of HCC due to ecotourism, nor due to illegal logging compared to their control groups. We did, however, find significantly increased HCC in the fragment group compared to chimpanzees living in a nearby intact forest [F(1,88) = 5.0, p = 0.03, r(2) = 0.20]. In conclusion, our results suggest that hair cortisol analysis is a powerful tool that can help understanding the impact of anthropogenic disturbances on chimpanzee well-being and could be applied to other great ape species. Public Library of Science 2016-04-06 /pmc/articles/PMC4822880/ /pubmed/27050418 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0151870 Text en © 2016 Carlitz et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Carlitz, Esther H. D. Miller, Robert Kirschbaum, Clemens Gao, Wei Hänni, Daniel C. van Schaik, Carel P. Measuring Hair Cortisol Concentrations to Assess the Effect of Anthropogenic Impacts on Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) |
title | Measuring Hair Cortisol Concentrations to Assess the Effect of Anthropogenic Impacts on Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) |
title_full | Measuring Hair Cortisol Concentrations to Assess the Effect of Anthropogenic Impacts on Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) |
title_fullStr | Measuring Hair Cortisol Concentrations to Assess the Effect of Anthropogenic Impacts on Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) |
title_full_unstemmed | Measuring Hair Cortisol Concentrations to Assess the Effect of Anthropogenic Impacts on Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) |
title_short | Measuring Hair Cortisol Concentrations to Assess the Effect of Anthropogenic Impacts on Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) |
title_sort | measuring hair cortisol concentrations to assess the effect of anthropogenic impacts on wild chimpanzees (pan troglodytes) |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4822880/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27050418 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0151870 |
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