The development of individual differences in cooperative behaviour : maternal glucocorticoid hormones alter helping behaviour of offspring in wild meerkats

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dc.contributor.author Dantzer, Ben
dc.contributor.author Dubuc, Constance
dc.contributor.author Goncalves, Ines Braga
dc.contributor.author Cram, Dominic L.
dc.contributor.author Bennett, Nigel Charles
dc.contributor.author Ganswindt, Andre
dc.contributor.author Heistermann, Michael
dc.contributor.author Duncan, Chris
dc.contributor.author Gaynor, David
dc.contributor.author Clutton-Brock, Tim H.
dc.date.accessioned 2019-10-04T09:58:29Z
dc.date.available 2019-10-04T09:58:29Z
dc.date.issued 2019-02
dc.description.abstract The phenotype of parents can have long-lasting effects on the development of offspring as well as on their behaviour, physiology and morphology as adults. In some cases, these changes may increase offspring fitness but, in others, they can elevate parental fitness at a cost to the fitness of their offspring. We show that in Kalahari meerkats (Suricata suricatta), the circulating glucocorticoid (GC) hormones of pregnant females affect the growth and cooperative behaviour of their offspring. We performed a 3-year experiment in wild meerkats to test the hypothesis that GC-mediated maternal effects reduce the potential for offspring to reproduce directly and therefore cause them to exhibit more cooperative behaviour. Daughters (but not sons) born to mothers treated with cortisol during pregnancy grew more slowly early in life and exhibited significantly more of two types of cooperative behaviour (pup rearing and feeding) once they were adults compared to offspring from control mothers. They also had lower measures of GCs as they aged, which could explain the observed increases in cooperative behaviour. Because early life growth is a crucial determinant of fitness in female meerkats, our results indicate that GC-mediated maternal effects may reduce the fitness of offspring, but may elevate parental fitness as a consequence of increasing the cooperative behaviour of their daughters. en_ZA
dc.description.department Anatomy and Physiology en_ZA
dc.description.department Mammal Research Institute en_ZA
dc.description.department Zoology and Entomology en_ZA
dc.description.librarian hj2019 en_ZA
dc.description.sponsorship Grants from National Environment Research Council (RG53472) and the European Research Council (294494) to T.H.C-B. I.B.G. was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. 31003A_13676 to M. Manser). NCB was supported by a DST-NRF SARCHl chair of Mammal Behavioural Ecology and Physiology. The KMP has also been financed by the University of Cambridge (T.H.C.-B) and University of Zurich (M. Manser). en_ZA
dc.description.uri https://royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rstb en_ZA
dc.identifier.citation Dantzer, B., Dubuc, C., Goncalves, I.B. et al. 2019, 'The development of individual differences in cooperative behaviour: maternal glucocorticoid hormones alter helping behaviour of offspring in wild meerkats', Philosophical Transactions B: Biological Sciences, vol. 374, no. 1770. en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn 0962-8436 (print)
dc.identifier.issn 1471-2970 (online)
dc.identifier.other 10.1098/rstb.2018.0117
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/71572
dc.language.iso en en_ZA
dc.publisher Royal Society en_ZA
dc.rights © 2019 The Author(s). Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. en_ZA
dc.subject Cooperation en_ZA
dc.subject Early life adversity en_ZA
dc.subject Glucocorticoids en_ZA
dc.subject Growth en_ZA
dc.subject Maternal stress en_ZA
dc.subject Meerkat (Suricata suricatta) en_ZA
dc.title The development of individual differences in cooperative behaviour : maternal glucocorticoid hormones alter helping behaviour of offspring in wild meerkats en_ZA
dc.type Postprint Article en_ZA


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