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Transition to siblinghood causes substantial and long-lasting physiological stress reactions in wild bonobos

View ORCID ProfileVerena Behringer, View ORCID ProfileAndreas Berghänel, Sean M. Lee, Barbara Fruth, Gottfried Hohmann
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.14.480345
Verena Behringer
1Endocrinology Laboratory, German Primate Center, Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen, Germany
2Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
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  • For correspondence: VBehringer@dpz.eu
Andreas Berghänel
3Domestication Lab, Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology, Department of Interdisciplinary Life Sciences, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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  • ORCID record for Andreas Berghänel
Sean M. Lee
4Primate Behavioral Ecology Lab, Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, Washington, USA
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Barbara Fruth
5Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
6Centre for Research and Conservation, Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
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Gottfried Hohmann
2Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
5Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
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Abstract

In mammals with a slow ontogeny, the birth of a sibling marks a major developmental transition. Behavioral studies suggest that this event is stressful for the older offspring, but physiological evidence for this is lacking, and it remains unknown whether the birth of a sibling is stressful beyond mere weaning stress. Studying transition to siblinghood in wild bonobos, we investigated physiological changes in urinary cortisol (stress response), neopterin (cell-mediated immunity), and total triiodothyronine (metabolic rate), and related them to behavioral changes in mother-infant relationship and feeding (suckling, riding, proximity, body contact, independent foraging). With sibling’s birth, cortisol levels increased fivefold in the older offspring and remained elevated for seven months, independent of age. This was associated with diminished immunity but not with behavioral or metabolic changes. Our results indicate that transition to siblinghood is stressful beyond nutritional and social weaning and suggest that this effect is evolutionary old.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted February 17, 2022.
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Transition to siblinghood causes substantial and long-lasting physiological stress reactions in wild bonobos
Verena Behringer, Andreas Berghänel, Sean M. Lee, Barbara Fruth, Gottfried Hohmann
bioRxiv 2022.02.14.480345; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.14.480345
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Transition to siblinghood causes substantial and long-lasting physiological stress reactions in wild bonobos
Verena Behringer, Andreas Berghänel, Sean M. Lee, Barbara Fruth, Gottfried Hohmann
bioRxiv 2022.02.14.480345; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.14.480345

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