TY - JOUR TI - Early maternal loss leads to short- but not long-term effects on diurnal cortisol slopes in wild chimpanzees AU - Girard-Buttoz, Cédric AU - Tkaczynski, Patrick J AU - Samuni, Liran AU - Fedurek, Pawel AU - Gomes, Cristina AU - Löhrich, Therese AU - Manin, Virgile AU - Preis, Anna AU - Valé, Prince F AU - Deschner, Tobias AU - Wittig, Roman M AU - Crockford, Catherine A2 - Nwaogu, Chima A2 - Perry, George H VL - 10 PY - 2021 DA - 2021/06/16 SP - e64134 C1 - eLife 2021;10:e64134 DO - 10.7554/eLife.64134 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.64134 AB - The biological embedding model (BEM) suggests that fitness costs of maternal loss arise when early-life experience embeds long-term alterations to hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity. Alternatively, the adaptive calibration model (ACM) regards physiological changes during ontogeny as short-term adaptations. Both models have been tested in humans but rarely in wild, long-lived animals. We assessed whether, as in humans, maternal loss had short- and long-term impacts on orphan wild chimpanzee urinary cortisol levels and diurnal urinary cortisol slopes, both indicative of HPA axis functioning. Immature chimpanzees recently orphaned and/or orphaned early in life had diurnal cortisol slopes reflecting heightened activation of the HPA axis. However, these effects appeared short-term, with no consistent differences between orphan and non-orphan cortisol profiles in mature males, suggesting stronger support for the ACM than the BEM in wild chimpanzees. Compensatory mechanisms, such as adoption, may buffer against certain physiological effects of maternal loss in this species. KW - chimpanzees KW - biological embedding model KW - early life adversity KW - stress physiology KW - orphan KW - long-lived mammals JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -