title: Stress responsiveness and anxiety-like behavior: The early social environment differentially shapes stability over time in a small rodent.
abstract: The early social environment can profoundly affect behavioral and physiological phenotypes. We investigated how male wild cavy offspring, whose mothers had either lived in a stable (SE) or an unstable social environment (UE) during pregnancy and lactation, differed in their anxiety-like behavior and stress responsiveness. At two different time points in life, we tested the offspring's anxiety-like behavior in a dark-light test and their endocrine reaction to challenge in a cortisol reactivity test. Furthermore, we analyzed whether individual traits remained stable over time. There was no effect of the early social environment on anxiety-like behavior and stress responsiveness. However, at an individual level, anxiety-like behavior was stable over time in UE- but not in SE-sons. Stress responsiveness, in turn, was rather inconsistent in UE-sons and temporally stable in SE-sons. Conclusively, we showed for the first time that the early social environment differentially shapes the stability of behavioral and endocrine traits. At first glance, these results may be surprising, but they can be explained by the different functions anxiety-like behavior and stress responsiveness have.
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioural Biology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany; Münster Graduate School of Evolution, University of Münster, Münster, Germany. Electronic address: s.sangenstedt@uni-muenster.de.
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sangenstedt
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics and Operations Research, School of Mathematical Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Electronic address: imanjljule@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Iman
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Jaljuli
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioural Biology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany; Münster Graduate School of Evolution, University of Münster, Münster, Germany. Electronic address: sachser@uni-muenster.de.
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sachser
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioural Biology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany; Münster Graduate School of Evolution, University of Münster, Münster, Germany. Electronic address: kaisesy@uni-muenster.de.
authors.forename: Sylvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kaiser
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001007:Anxiety / Q000209:etiology / Q000378:metabolism / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006168:Guinea Pigs; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000378:metabolism; D007774:Lactation / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects / Q000378:metabolism / Q000523:psychology; D012377:Rodentia; D012931:Social Environment; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D006854:Hydrocortisone
keywords: Animal personality; Anxiety-like behavior; Cortisol; Dark–light test; Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis; Social environment; Stability over time; Stress responsiveness; Wild cavies