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Hair cortisol concentrations correlate negatively with survival in a wild primate population

BACKGROUND: Glucocorticoid hormones are known to play a key role in mediating a cascade of physiological responses to social and ecological stressors and can therefore influence animals’ behaviour and ultimately fitness. Yet, how glucocorticoid levels are associated with reproductive success or surv...

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Autores principales: Rakotoniaina, Josué H., Kappeler, Peter M., Kaesler, Eva, Hämäläinen, Anni M., Kirschbaum, Clemens, Kraus, Cornelia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579956/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28859635
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-017-0140-1
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author Rakotoniaina, Josué H.
Kappeler, Peter M.
Kaesler, Eva
Hämäläinen, Anni M.
Kirschbaum, Clemens
Kraus, Cornelia
author_facet Rakotoniaina, Josué H.
Kappeler, Peter M.
Kaesler, Eva
Hämäläinen, Anni M.
Kirschbaum, Clemens
Kraus, Cornelia
author_sort Rakotoniaina, Josué H.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Glucocorticoid hormones are known to play a key role in mediating a cascade of physiological responses to social and ecological stressors and can therefore influence animals’ behaviour and ultimately fitness. Yet, how glucocorticoid levels are associated with reproductive success or survival in a natural setting has received little empirical attention so far. Here, we examined links between survival and levels of glucocorticoid in a small, short-lived primate, the grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus), using for the first time an indicator of long-term stress load (hair cortisol concentration). Using a capture-mark-recapture modelling approach, we assessed the effect of stress on survival in a broad context (semi-annual rates), but also under a specific period of high energetic demands during the reproductive season. We further assessed the power of other commonly used health indicators (body condition and parasitism) in predicting survival outcomes relative to the effect of long-term stress. RESULTS: We found that high levels of hair cortisol were associated with reduced survival probabilities both at the semi-annual scale and over the reproductive season. Additionally, very good body condition (measured as scaled mass index) was related to increased survival at the semi-annual scale, but not during the breeding season. In contrast, variation in parasitism failed to predict survival. CONCLUSION: Altogether, our results indicate that long-term increased glucocorticoid levels can be related to survival and hence population dynamics, and suggest differential strength of selection acting on glucocorticoids, body condition, and parasite infection. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12898-017-0140-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-55799562017-09-07 Hair cortisol concentrations correlate negatively with survival in a wild primate population Rakotoniaina, Josué H. Kappeler, Peter M. Kaesler, Eva Hämäläinen, Anni M. Kirschbaum, Clemens Kraus, Cornelia BMC Ecol Research Article BACKGROUND: Glucocorticoid hormones are known to play a key role in mediating a cascade of physiological responses to social and ecological stressors and can therefore influence animals’ behaviour and ultimately fitness. Yet, how glucocorticoid levels are associated with reproductive success or survival in a natural setting has received little empirical attention so far. Here, we examined links between survival and levels of glucocorticoid in a small, short-lived primate, the grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus), using for the first time an indicator of long-term stress load (hair cortisol concentration). Using a capture-mark-recapture modelling approach, we assessed the effect of stress on survival in a broad context (semi-annual rates), but also under a specific period of high energetic demands during the reproductive season. We further assessed the power of other commonly used health indicators (body condition and parasitism) in predicting survival outcomes relative to the effect of long-term stress. RESULTS: We found that high levels of hair cortisol were associated with reduced survival probabilities both at the semi-annual scale and over the reproductive season. Additionally, very good body condition (measured as scaled mass index) was related to increased survival at the semi-annual scale, but not during the breeding season. In contrast, variation in parasitism failed to predict survival. CONCLUSION: Altogether, our results indicate that long-term increased glucocorticoid levels can be related to survival and hence population dynamics, and suggest differential strength of selection acting on glucocorticoids, body condition, and parasite infection. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12898-017-0140-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2017-09-01 /pmc/articles/PMC5579956/ /pubmed/28859635 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-017-0140-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Rakotoniaina, Josué H.
Kappeler, Peter M.
Kaesler, Eva
Hämäläinen, Anni M.
Kirschbaum, Clemens
Kraus, Cornelia
Hair cortisol concentrations correlate negatively with survival in a wild primate population
title Hair cortisol concentrations correlate negatively with survival in a wild primate population
title_full Hair cortisol concentrations correlate negatively with survival in a wild primate population
title_fullStr Hair cortisol concentrations correlate negatively with survival in a wild primate population
title_full_unstemmed Hair cortisol concentrations correlate negatively with survival in a wild primate population
title_short Hair cortisol concentrations correlate negatively with survival in a wild primate population
title_sort hair cortisol concentrations correlate negatively with survival in a wild primate population
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579956/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28859635
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-017-0140-1
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