ArticleEcology and evolution2022
Low heritability and high phenotypic plasticity of salivary cortisol in response to environmental heterogeneity in a wild pinniped.
Article in Ecology and evolution, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- The marginal male hypothesis explains only small amounts of spatial variation in density in pinnipeds.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Sustainability in the laboratory: evaluating the reusability of microtitre plates for PCR and fragment detection.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Skin, but not gut, microbial communities vary with social density in Antarctic fur seals.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Life-history stage influences immune investment and oxidative stress in response to environmental heterogeneity in Antarctic fur seals.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Little evidence of inbreeding depression for birth mass, survival and growth in Antarctic fur seal pups.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Demographic Reconstruction of Antarctic Fur Seals Supports the Krill Surplus Hypothesis.Genes · 2022Article
- Low heritability and high phenotypic plasticity of salivary cortisol in response to environmental heterogeneity in a wild pinniped.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Individuals are unique in how they interact with and respond to their environment. Correspondingly, unpredictable challenges or environmental stressors often produce an individualized response of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and its downstream effector cortisol. We used a fully crossed, repeated measures design to investigate the factors shaping individual variation in baseline cortisol in Antarctic fur seal pups and their mothers. Saliva samples were collected from focal individuals at two breeding colonies, one with low and the other with high density, during two consecutive years of contrasting food availability. Mothers and pups were sampled concurrently at birth and shortly before weaning, while pups were additionally sampled every 20 days. We found that heritability was low for baseline cortisol, while within-individual repeatability and among-individual variability were high. A substantial proportion of the variation in baseline cortisol could be explained in pups and mothers by a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors including sex, weight, day, season, and colony of birth. Our findings provide detailed insights into the individualization of endocrine phenotypes and their genetic and environmental drivers in a wild pinniped. Furthermore, the strong associations between cortisol and life history traits that we report in fur seals could have important implications for understanding the population dynamics of species impacted by environmental change.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.