ORIGINAL PAPERS

Effects of seasonality and social ranks on fecal cortisol levels in male Tibetan macaques(Macaca thibetana)

  • WU Mingyang ,
  • CHEN Shiwang ,
  • SUN Binghua ,
  • WANG Xi ,
  • XIA Dongpo ,
  • LI Jinhua
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  • 1 School of Life Sciences, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China;
    2 International Collaborative Research Center for Huangshan Biodiversity and Tibetan Macaque Behavioral Ecology, Hefei 230601, China;
    3 School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China;
    4 School of Life Sciences, Hefei Normal University, Hefei 230601, China

Received date: 2020-12-30

  Online published: 2021-04-20

Abstract

Many primate species are social, a consequence of long-term evolutionary processes.Despite natural selection favoring sociality, intragroup competition can generate stress for individuals.Cortisol level is one physiological indicator of an individual's stress.Seasonally-breading Tibetan macaques(Macaca thibetana) are ideal candidates for the investigation of the potential relationships between social stressors, cortisol levels, and dominance rank.We collected 325 fresh feces from 13 males in Huangshan, Anhui Province, China, and quantified cortisol levels from the fecal samples.We analyzed individual variation in fecal cortisol levels to test the effects of season(i.e., the mating and non-mating seasons) and position in the dominance hierarchy.Our results show that the macaque subjects had higher fecal cortisol levels in the mating season.There was no significant difference in the cortisol levels of high-ranked, middle-ranked, and low-ranked males in the non-mating season, but in the mating season, cortisol levels of middle-ranked males were significantly higher than those of both high- and low-ranked males.As we have known, this is the first study to investigate the cortisol levels in wild Tibetan macaques, and analyze the effects of seasonality and social ranks on cortisol.

Cite this article

WU Mingyang , CHEN Shiwang , SUN Binghua , WANG Xi , XIA Dongpo , LI Jinhua . Effects of seasonality and social ranks on fecal cortisol levels in male Tibetan macaques(Macaca thibetana)[J]. ACTA THERIOLOGICA SINICA, 2021 , 41(4) : 398 -405 . DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150524

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