Debottam Bhattacharjee, Aníta Rut Guðjónsdóttir, Paula Escriche Chova, Esmee Middelburg, Jana Jäckels, Natasja G de Groot, Bernard Wallner, Jorg J M Massen, Lena S Pflüger
Animals experience stressful situations, from predation to social conflicts, but mostly deal with them successfully. This adaptive mechanism, coping, reduces the adverse effects of stressors, and its failure may result in reduced fitness. Substantial inter-individual variation in coping is observed, yet little is known about how behavioral, physiological and genetic drivers regulate coping holistically and contribute to such variations. We assessed behavioral coping styles (n =30 ), emotional arousal (n =12 ), and personalities (n =32 ) of long-tailed macaques ( Macaca fascicularis ) and also investigated the association of coping with a valine/methionine polymorphism encoded by a critical human stress regulatory gene, catechol- O -methyltransferase (COMT) (n =26 )...
February 16, 2024: IScience