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Orphaning stunts growth in wild African elephants

Orphans of several species suffer social and physiological consequences such as receiving more aggression from conspecifics and lower survival. One physiological consequence of orphaning, stunted growth, has been identified in both humans and chimpanzees, but has not been assessed in a non-primate s...

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Autores principales: Parker, Jenna M, Wittemyer, George
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9341231/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35919453
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coac053
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author Parker, Jenna M
Wittemyer, George
author_facet Parker, Jenna M
Wittemyer, George
author_sort Parker, Jenna M
collection PubMed
description Orphans of several species suffer social and physiological consequences such as receiving more aggression from conspecifics and lower survival. One physiological consequence of orphaning, stunted growth, has been identified in both humans and chimpanzees, but has not been assessed in a non-primate species. Here, we tested whether wild African elephant orphans show evidence of stunted growth. We measured individually known female elephants in the Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves of Kenya, with a rangefinder capable of calculating height, to estimate a von Bertalanffy growth curve for female elephants of the study population. We then compared measurements of known orphans and non-orphans of various ages, using a Bayesian analysis to assess variation around the derived growth curve. We found that orphans are shorter for their age than non-orphans. However, results suggest orphans may partially compensate for stunting through later growth, as orphans who had spent a longer time without their mother had heights more similar to non-orphans. More age mates in an individual’s family were associated with taller height, suggesting social support from peers may contribute to increased growth. Conversely, more adult females in an individual’s family were associated with shorter height, suggesting within-group competition for resources with older individuals may reduce juvenile growth. Finally, we found a counterintuitive result that less rainfall in the first 6 years of life was correlated with taller height, potentially reflecting the unavoidable bias of measuring individuals who were fit enough to survive conditions of low rainfall as young calves. Reduced growth of individuals has been shown to reduce survival and reproduction in other species. As such, stunting in wildlife orphans may negatively affect fitness and represents an indirect effect of ivory poaching on African elephants.
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spelling pubmed-93412312022-08-01 Orphaning stunts growth in wild African elephants Parker, Jenna M Wittemyer, George Conserv Physiol Research Article Orphans of several species suffer social and physiological consequences such as receiving more aggression from conspecifics and lower survival. One physiological consequence of orphaning, stunted growth, has been identified in both humans and chimpanzees, but has not been assessed in a non-primate species. Here, we tested whether wild African elephant orphans show evidence of stunted growth. We measured individually known female elephants in the Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves of Kenya, with a rangefinder capable of calculating height, to estimate a von Bertalanffy growth curve for female elephants of the study population. We then compared measurements of known orphans and non-orphans of various ages, using a Bayesian analysis to assess variation around the derived growth curve. We found that orphans are shorter for their age than non-orphans. However, results suggest orphans may partially compensate for stunting through later growth, as orphans who had spent a longer time without their mother had heights more similar to non-orphans. More age mates in an individual’s family were associated with taller height, suggesting social support from peers may contribute to increased growth. Conversely, more adult females in an individual’s family were associated with shorter height, suggesting within-group competition for resources with older individuals may reduce juvenile growth. Finally, we found a counterintuitive result that less rainfall in the first 6 years of life was correlated with taller height, potentially reflecting the unavoidable bias of measuring individuals who were fit enough to survive conditions of low rainfall as young calves. Reduced growth of individuals has been shown to reduce survival and reproduction in other species. As such, stunting in wildlife orphans may negatively affect fitness and represents an indirect effect of ivory poaching on African elephants. Oxford University Press 2022-07-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9341231/ /pubmed/35919453 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coac053 Text en © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press and the Society for Experimental Biology. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Parker, Jenna M
Wittemyer, George
Orphaning stunts growth in wild African elephants
title Orphaning stunts growth in wild African elephants
title_full Orphaning stunts growth in wild African elephants
title_fullStr Orphaning stunts growth in wild African elephants
title_full_unstemmed Orphaning stunts growth in wild African elephants
title_short Orphaning stunts growth in wild African elephants
title_sort orphaning stunts growth in wild african elephants
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9341231/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35919453
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coac053
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