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   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Most species, including humans, who experience early life adversity   
   suffer as adults. How are gorillas different?    
      
     Date:   
         May 15, 2023   
     Source:   
         University of Michigan   
     Summary:   
         There's something most species -- from baboons to humans to horses -   
         - have in common: When they suffer serious adversity early in life,   
         they're more likely to experience hardship later on in life.   
      
      
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   There's something most species -- from baboons to humans to horses --   
   have in common: When they suffer serious adversity early in life,   
   they're more likely to experience hardship later on in life.   
      
   When researchers from the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and the University   
   of Michigan decided to look at this question in gorillas, they weren't   
   sure what they would find.   
      
   Previous studies by the Fossey Fund revealed that young gorillas are   
   surprisingly resilient to losing their mothers, in contrast to what has   
   been found in many other species. But losing your mother is only one of   
   many potential bad things that can happen to young animals.   
      
   "Assuming that you survive something that we consider early life   
   adversity, it's often still the case that you will be less healthy or   
   you will have fewer kids or your lifespan will be shorter -- no matter   
   what species you are," said U-M anthropologist Stacy Rosenbaum, senior   
   author on the study. "There's this whole range of things that happens to   
   you that seems to just make your life worse in adulthood."  But instead,   
   the researchers found that gorillas who survived past age 6 were largely   
   unaffected by difficulties they encountered as infants or juveniles.   
      
   The study is published in the journal Current Biology.   
      
   Like other species, humans also deal with early life adversity, and the   
   effects of this can follow us into adulthood, such as a shorter lifespan   
   or health complications, Rosenbaum said. But in humans, it's difficult   
   to tease out whether we, for example, develop cancer or die early as   
   adults because of an adverse event early in life per se, or whether it's   
   because of a multitude of behavioral, environmental and cultural factors   
   -- or a combination of all of the above.   
      
   Studying these early adverse events in nonhuman species could help   
   researchers understand how such events affect humans, and how to   
   mitigate them.   
      
   "When you look at animals, you remove a lot of the variation that we have   
   in humans. For example, they are all eating similar diets, they all get   
   exercise as part of their daily lives, they don't have the opportunity   
   to engage in behaviors with negative health outcomes like smoking,"   
   said Robin Morrison, a researcher with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and   
   lead author on the study.   
      
   But despite this, in most species it is still the case that early   
   adversity can have negative effects in adulthood, which suggests   
   that there is some kind of deeper biological mechanism there that   
   we don't understand very well, Morrison said. That gorillas show   
   a different pattern suggests these early life adversities can be   
   overcome. Understanding why and how this happens can have significant   
   implications for our own species, she said.   
      
   Like humans, gorillas live a long time and have a small number of   
   offspring that they heavily invest in. This makes them a good comparative   
   animal model for understanding the ramifications of early life adverse   
   events. The researchers looked at 55 years of long-term data collected in   
   253 wild mountain gorillas, 135 of which were male and 118 female. These   
   gorillas live in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, and have been   
   monitored for more than five decades by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.   
      
   The researchers identified six different kinds of early life adversity:   
   losing a father or mother, experiencing the death of a group member by   
   infanticide, social group instability, having few age-mates in the social   
   group, and having a competing sibling who was born soon after them. The   
   data included information about how many of these early adversities   
   each gorilla experienced and at what age, as well as how long each   
   gorilla lived.   
      
   The researchers looked at what happened when a gorilla experienced   
   none, one, two or three or more adverse events. They found that the   
   more of these adverse events gorillas experienced before age 6, the more   
   likely they were to die as juveniles. But if, despite experiencing early   
   adversity, they survived until age 6 -- past their juvenile stage --   
   the researchers found no evidence that their lifespans were shorter,   
   no matter how many adverse events the gorillas suffered.   
      
   In fact, if a gorilla experienced three or more forms of adversity, it   
   actually lived longer; this group of animals had a 70% reduction in the   
   risk of death across adulthood. But this was driven by greater longevity   
   in males specifically, and the researchers suspect the trend was due to   
   something called viability selection. This means that if a gorilla was   
   strong enough to survive difficult early life events, it might just be   
   a "higher-quality individual," and thus more likely to have a longer   
   life span.   
      
   "I was expecting to see that these gorillas would have short lifespans   
   and would not do very well as adults," Rosenbaum said. "We found that   
   these events are definitely associated with a much higher risk of death   
   when you're young.   
      
   But if you survive to age 6, there's no evidence that those shorten   
   your lifespan at all. This is quite different from what we see in other   
   species."  The researchers have some theories about why these mountain   
   gorillas were so resilient. Gorillas have very tight-knit social groups   
   and prior studies have shown that when a young gorilla loses its mom,   
   it doesn't actually become more isolated: other gorillas fill the gap   
   in social companionship.   
      
   "The youngster actually increases its time near other gorillas after   
   the loss of its mom and in particular the highest-ranking adult male,   
   even if he isn't their biological father," Morrison said. "These strong   
   networks might provide critical social buffering, as has been shown   
   in humans. The quality of our social relationships is a very important   
   predictor of our health and longevity -- in some cases, more important   
   than genetics or lifestyle."  Another reason they may be relatively   
   buffered from the consequences of adversity is that mountain gorillas live   
   in a resource-rich environment compared to many other wild primates. It   
   may be easier for a gorilla to survive difficult circumstances if they   
   are not also constantly dealing with the stress of finding enough food   
   and water, Rosenbaum said.   
      
   "For comparison, savanna baboons -- who were the inspiration for this   
   analysis -- live in this highly seasonal environment where they go   
   through extreme droughts. They sometimes will have to walk miles to get   
   to a water hole.   
      
   They're often struggling for every single calorie they take in," she said.   
      
   "That's not the world that mountain gorillas live in. They're often   
   described as living in a giant salad bowl."  The researchers' findings   
   suggest that species similar to our own can have significant resilience   
   to early life adversity. The results also raise important questions   
   about the biological roots of sensitivity to early experiences, and the   
   protective mechanisms that contribute to resilience in gorillas.   
      
   "I don't think we should assume that the long-term negative effects of   
   early life adversity are universal," Rosenbaum said. "We tend to talk   
   about this as if it's a ubiquitous experience, and a given that your   
   adulthood is going to be compromised if you live through early adversity.   
      
   "But I don't think it's nearly that cut-and-dry, even in the human   
   literature.   
      
   I think the data are a lot more complex for humans and this research   
   would suggest that they might be more complex for other animals, too. And   
   I actually think that that's a hopeful story."   
       * RELATED_TOPICS   
             o Health_&_Medicine   
                   # Healthy_Aging # Women's_Health # Men's_Health   
             o Mind_&_Brain   
                   # Social_Psychology # Infant_and_Preschool_Learning #   
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   Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Michigan. Note:   
   Content may be edited for style and length.   
      
      
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   Journal Reference:   
      1. Robin E. Morrison, Winnie Eckardt, Tara S. Stoinski, Stacy   
      Rosenbaum.   
      
         Cumulative early-life adversity does not predict reduced   
         adult longevity in wild gorillas. Current Biology, 2023; DOI:   
         10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.051   
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   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230515132000.htm   
      
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