(Press-News.org) A devastating hurricane transformed a monkey society by changing the pros and cons of interacting with others, new research shows.
Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, killing more than 3,000 people. It also destroyed 63% of vegetation on Cayo Santiago (also known as Monkey Island), which is home to a population of rhesus macaques.
Even now, tree cover remains far below pre-hurricane levels and – in this hot part of the world – that makes shade a scarce and precious resource for the macaques.
The new study, led by the universities of Pennsylvania and Exeter and published in the journal Science, shows the storm damage altered the evolutionary benefits of tolerating others and sharing shade – giving a survival advantage to tolerant macaques.
With many ecosystems changing rapidly due to human activity, this study is an example of a species adapting its social strategy to survive.
“In response to the drastic changes caused by the hurricane, macaques persistently increased tolerance and decreased aggression towards each other,” said Dr Camille Testard, from the University of Pennsylvania.
“This enabled more macaques to access scarce shade, which is critical for survival.”
Dr Testard added: “We examined 10 years of data on the strength and number of macaques’ social ties, before and after the hurricane.
“Before the hurricane, tolerating others had no impact on risk of death.
“Afterwards, macaques that displayed more than average social tolerance – and were therefore better able to share shade – were 42% less likely to die than those that were less tolerant.”
This represents a sudden change in “selection pressure” – the evolutionary benefits or costs of different traits or behaviours.
Social behaviour was assessed by recording aggression and how often individuals were seen sitting together.
“Macaques aren’t the best at sharing resources – be they food or shade. They are well known to live in an aggressive, highly competitive society,” said Professor Lauren Brent, from the University of Exeter.
“But in the heat caused by ecological changes, often around 40C, the macaques had to share space or die.”
Dr Testard added: “To access shade, they need to tolerate – and be tolerated by – others, and we found that this tolerance spills over into other daily interactions.
“Macaques that began sharing shade also spend time together in the mornings, before the day’s heat forces them to seek shade.
“In effect, the hurricane changed the rules of the game in the monkeys’ society.”
Professor Brent added: “For group-living animals, social relationships may allow them to cope with disturbances in the environment, including human-induced climate change.
“We were surprised the macaques’ social behaviour was so flexible, making them resilient to this environmental change, but some species may not display this same flexibility.”
The research team included Arizona State University and New York University.
Funders included the National Institutes of Health, the European Research Council, the National Science Foundation and the Royal Society.
The paper is entitled: “Ecological disturbance alters the adaptive benefits of social ties.”
END
Hurricane changed ‘rules of the game’ in monkey society
2024-06-20
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Researchers widely observe yet seldom publish about same-sex sexual behavior in primates and other mammals - often because it is perceived to be rare
2024-06-20
Researchers widely observe yet seldom publish about same-sex sexual behavior in primates and other mammals - often because it is perceived to be rare
###
Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0304885
Article Title: Same-sex sexual behaviour among mammals is widely observed, yet seldomly reported: Evidence from an online expert survey
Author Countries: Canada, USA
Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...
Wild chimpanzees seek out medicinal plants to treat illness and injuries
2024-06-20
Chimpanzees appear to consume plants with medicinal properties to treat their ailments, according to a study publishing on June 20 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Elodie Freymann from the University of Oxford, UK, and colleagues.
Many plants produce compounds that have medicinal effects on humans and other animals. Wild chimpanzees eat a variety of plant matter, including some that is nutritionally poor but may treat or lessen the symptoms of illness. However, it is hard to determine whether chimpanzees self-medicate, by intentionally seeking out plants with properties that help their specific ailments, or passively consume plants ...
New catalyst unveils the hidden power of water for green hydrogen generation
2024-06-20
Hydrogen is a promising chemical and energy vector to decarbonize our society. Unlike conventional fuels, hydrogen utilization as a fuel does not generate carbon dioxide in return. Unfortunately, today, most of the hydrogen that is produced in our society comes from methane, a fossil fuel. It does so in a process (methane reforming) that leads to substantial carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, the production of green hydrogen requires scalable alternatives to this process.
Water electrolysis offers a path to generate green hydrogen which can be ...
Supermassive black hole appears to grow like a baby star
2024-06-20
Supermassive black holes pose unanswered questions for astronomers around the world, not least “How do they grow so big?” Now, an international team of astronomers, including researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, has discovered a powerful rotating, magnetic wind that they believe is helping a galaxy’s central supermassive black hole to grow. The swirling wind, revealed with the help of the ALMA telescope in nearby galaxy ESO320-G030, suggests that similar processes are involved both in black hole growth and the birth of stars.
Most galaxies, including our own Milky Way have a supermassive black hole at their centre. How ...
Early detection crucial in bile duct cancer for patients with rare liver disease
2024-06-20
Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a rare progressive liver disease that damages bile ducts and significantly increases the risk of bile duct cancer, particularly a type called cholangiocarcinoma (CCA). This cancer is aggressive, and curative surgery is uncommon. Liver transplantation is a potential treatment option for some PSC-CCA patients, especially if the cancer is caught early. Early diagnosis is essential for successful treatment.
PSC can affect people of all ages but primarily strikes men in their 30s and 40s. It is often accompanied by inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The disease can progress to liver failure and increase the risk of colorectal cancer ...
BCMA-CD19 bispecific CAR-T therapy in refractory chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy
2024-06-20
This study is led by Professor Junnian Zheng and Ming Shi from the Cancer Institute of Xuzhou Medical University, together with the team of Professor Guiyun Cui and Wei Zhang from the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University. The team reported for the first time using BCMA-CD19 bispecific CAR T cells for treating relapsed/refractory CIDP.
Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP) is an uncommon condition with sudden onset symptoms, including nerve damage affecting movement, sensation, speech, breathing, and heart rate. ...
Embryo and organoid models do not threaten the definition of personhood, bioethicist says
2024-06-20
Advances in organoids and embryonic models of human development have the potential to prompt social and existential questions—e.g., what defines human individuality? However, bioethicist Insoo Hyun of Harvard Medical School and the Museum of Science in Boston says that these models have the potential to strengthen rather than weaken the concept of human individuality when considered within the philosophical frameworks of “personhood” and sentience. In a commentary publishing June 20 in the journal Cell, Hyun argues that despite huge advances, we are a long way off from developing technologies that would ...
Great British Bake Off finalist Josh Smalley discusses the parallels between chemistry and baking
2024-06-20
Last year on a Friday evening, chemical biology researcher Josh Smalley was in the lab when he received a call inviting him to appear on the 14th and latest season of The Great British Bake Off. Starting as one of a group of 12 amateur bakers, Smalley made it all the way to the final round, where the top 3 contestants compete for the winning spot. In an essay published in the journal Cell Chemical Biology on June 20, Smalley describes the overlap between chemistry and baking and how his training in one ...
New genetic cause of obesity could help guide treatment
2024-06-20
Scientists have discovered a new cause of why people who lack a specific blood group are genetically predisposed to be overweight or obese.
A team of international researchers, led by the University of Exeter, discovered that people with a genetic variant that disables the SMIM1 gene have higher body weight because they expend less energy when at rest.
SMIM1 was only identified 10 years ago, whilst searching for the gene encoding a specific blood group, known as Vel. One in 5,000 people lack both copies of the gene, making them Vel-negative. The findings from the new research suggest that this group is also more likely to be overweight, a conclusion ...
Palaeontology: New, small, ancient crocodile-like reptile described in Brazil
2024-06-20
The discovery of a new, ancient, predatory reptile dubbed Parvosuchus aurelioi — part of a group of crocodile-like reptiles called pseudosuchians — in Brazil is described in a paper in Scientific Reports. The specimen, which dates to approximately 237 million years ago, during the Middle-Late Triassic, is the first small predatory reptile of its kind to be found in this country.
Prior to the dominance of the dinosaurs, pseudosuchians were a common form of ancient quadruped reptile during the Triassic Period (252 – 201 million years ago), with some species amongst ...