The long term effect of physical and social stressors on hair coltisol dynamics in captive chimpanzees

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25590205
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Experimental psychology
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: Teramoto Migaku 京都大学, 野生動物研究センター, 特任研究員 (50624061)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): MORIMURA Naruki 京都大学, 野生動物研究センター, 特定准教授 (90396226)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 生理学 / チンパンジー / ストレス / コルチゾル

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Chronic stress should be one of major topics in welfare consideration of non-human animals, because it can be strongly related with disease and reproductive disorder in mammals. The present study aimed to investigate coltisol accumulated in body hair as an index of chronic stress by monitoring 59 captive chimpanzees (/Pan toroglodytes/) living in Kumamoto Sanctuary of Kyoto University from 2013 until 2015.
As a result of the monitoring for 3 years, sex difference in hair cortisol concentration was evident; males showed higher concentration more than females. This finding suggested that social factor can be relatively predominant than other factors of stressors caused by physical injury and environment in chimpanzees.

Free Research Field

生理学