Cortisol levels are positively associated with pup-feeding rates in male meerkats
Date
2006
Authors
Carlson A.A.
Manser M.B.
Young A.J.
Russell A.F.
Jordan N.R.
McNeilly A.S.
Clutton-Brock T.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
In societies of cooperative vertebrates, individual differences in contributions to offspring care are commonly substantial. Recent attempts to explain the causes of this variation have focused on correlations between contributions to care and the protein hormone prolactin, or the steroid hormone testosterone. However, such studies have seldom considered the importance of other hormones or controlled for nonhormonal factors that are correlative with both individual hormone levels and contributions to care. Using multivariate statistics, we show that hormone levels explain significant variation in contributions to pup-feeding by male meerkats, even after controlling for non-hormonal effects. However, long-term contributions to pup provisioning were significantly and positively correlated with plasma levels of cortisol rather than prolactin, while plasma levels of testosterone were not related to individual patterns of pup-feeding. Furthermore, a playback experiment that used pup begging calls to increase the feeding rates of male helpers gave rise to parallel increases in plasma cortisol levels, whilst prolactin and testosterone levels remained unchanged. Our findings confirm that hormones can explain significant amounts of variation in contributions to offspring feeding, and that cortisol, not prolactin, is the hormone most strongly associated with pup-feeding in cooperative male meerkats. © 2005 The Royal Society.
Description
Keywords
hydrocortisone, prolactin, testosterone, carnivore, cooperative behavior, feeding, food provisioning, male, mammal, multivariate analysis, parental care, testosterone, animal behavior, animal experiment, article, Carnivora, controlled study, correlation analysis, feeding behavior, hydrocortisone blood level, male, meerkat, multivariate analysis, nonhuman, priority journal, progeny, prolactin blood level, testosterone blood level, Vertebrata
Citation
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
273
1586
273
1586