Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Taï Chimpanzee Project, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
Commun Biol. 2023 May 26;6(1):565. doi: 10.1038/s42003-023-04909-9.
Mechanisms of inheritance remain poorly defined for many fitness-mediating traits, especially in long-lived animals with protracted development. Using 6,123 urinary samples from 170 wild chimpanzees, we examined the contributions of genetics, non-genetic maternal effects, and shared community effects on variation in cortisol levels, an established predictor of survival in long-lived primates. Despite evidence for consistent individual variation in cortisol levels across years, between-group effects were more influential and made an overwhelming contribution to variation in this trait. Focusing on within-group variation, non-genetic maternal effects accounted for 8% of the individual differences in average cortisol levels, significantly more than that attributable to genetic factors, which was indistinguishable from zero. These maternal effects are consistent with a primary role of a shared environment in shaping physiology. For chimpanzees, and perhaps other species with long life histories, community and maternal effects appear more relevant than genetic inheritance in shaping key physiological traits.
对于许多与适应度相关的特征，其遗传机制仍未得到很好的定义，尤其是在那些生长发育时间较长的长寿动物中。本研究利用 170 只野生黑猩猩的 6123 份尿液样本，检测了皮质醇水平变化的遗传、非遗传母性效应和共享群落效应的贡献，皮质醇水平是预测长寿灵长类动物生存能力的一个既定指标。尽管皮质醇水平在个体间存在一致的年度差异，但组间效应更具影响力，对该特征的变异做出了压倒性的贡献。关注组内变异，非遗传母性效应解释了平均皮质醇水平个体差异的 8%，明显高于遗传因素的贡献，可以忽略为零。这些母性效应与共享环境在塑造生理机能方面的主要作用一致。对于黑猩猩，以及其他可能具有长生活史的物种来说，群落和母性效应在塑造关键生理特征方面似乎比遗传遗传更重要。
