ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2014
Responses to social and environmental stress are attenuated by strong male bonds in wild macaques.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 73 papers.
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Who cites it
73 citing papers in PubMed, 243 citations in OpenAlex.
- Maternal glucocorticoids have persistent effects on offspring social phenotype irrespective of opportunity for social buffering.The Journal of animal ecology · 2026Article
- The Effect of Social Rank on Reproductive Traits Depends on Rank Metric: Evidence From a Group-Living Carnivore.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Habituation and resocialization of a former pet and entertainment chimpanzee: Longitudinal monitoring of physiological and behavioral responses.Primates; journal of primatology · 2026Article
- Ecological and social pressures drive same-sex sexual behaviour in non-human primates.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Affiliative and agonistic interactions distinguish sex-biased social groups of greater spear-nosed bats, Phyllostomus hastatus.PloS one · 2026Article
- Beyond the Alpha: Extra-Pair Paternities and Male Reproductive Success in a Primate Multilevel Society.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Social instability is associated with an elevated stress response but not with a fitness cost across vertebrate studies.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- MacaqueNet: Advancing comparative behavioural research through large-scale collaboration.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Article
- Early prenatal but not postnatal glucocorticoid exposure is associated with enhanced HPA axis activity into adulthood in a wild primate.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Associations between fecal glucocorticoid levels and social bonds vary with relatedness in juvenile rhesus macaques.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- More allogrooming is followed by higher physiological stress in wild female baboons.Biology letters · 2024Article
- Manipulation of a social signal affects DNA methylation of a stress-related gene in a free-living bird.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Immune cell composition varies by age, sex and exposure to social adversity in free-ranging Rhesus Macaques.GeroScience · 2024Article
- Social network shrinking is explained by active and passive effects but not increasing selectivity with age in wild macaques.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Away from the herd: loneliness as a dysfunction of social alignment.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2024Article
- Article
- Group structure and individual relationships of sanctuary-living Grauer's gorillas (Gorilla beringei graueri).PloS one · 2024Article
- Animal Wellness: The Power of Multiomics and Integrative Strategies: Multiomics in Improving Animal Health.Veterinary medicine international · 2024Review
- The effects of challenge or social buffering on cortisol, testosterone, and antler growth in captive red deer (Cervus elaphus) males.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Effect of behavioural sampling methods on local and global social network metrics: a case-study of three macaque species.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
13 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In humans and obligatory social animals, individuals with weak social ties experience negative health and fitness consequences. The social buffering hypothesis conceptualizes one possible mediating mechanism: During stressful situations the presence of close social partners buffers against the adverse effects of increased physiological stress levels. We tested this hypothesis using data on social (rate of aggression received) and environmental (low temperatures) stressors in wild male Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) in Morocco. These males form strong, enduring, and equitable affiliative relationships similar to human friendships. We tested the effect of the strength of a male's top three social bonds on his fecal glucocorticoid metabolite (fGCM) levels as a function of the stressors' intensity. The attenuating effect of stronger social bonds on physiological stress increased both with increasing rates of aggression received and with decreasing minimum daily temperature. Ruling out thermoregulatory and immediate effects of social interactions on fGCM levels, our results indicate that male Barbary macaques employ a tend-and-befriend coping strategy in the face of increased environmental as well as social day-to-day stressors. This evidence of a stress-ameliorating effect of social bonding among males under natural conditions and beyond the mother-offspring, kin or pair bond broadens the generality of the social buffering hypothesis.
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