Stress responsiveness in a wild primate predicts survival across an extreme El Nino drought.

ABSTRACT: We know more about the costs of chronic stress than the benefits of the acute stress response-an adaptive response that buffers organisms from life-threatening challenges. As yet, no primate study has empirically identified how the stress response adaptively affects evolutionary fitness. Here, we take advantage of a natural experiment-an El Niño drought-that produced unprecedented mortality for wild white-faced capuchins. Using a reaction norm approach, we provide evidence from primates that a more robust stress response to a challenge, measured using fecal glucocorticoids, predicts a greater likelihood of survival. We show that individuals with greater stress responsiveness to previous droughts later had higher survival across a severe El Niño drought. Evolutionary models need empirical d

SUBMITTER: Carrera SC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11753399 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature