Nonhuman primate welfare: Can there be a relationship between personality, lateralization and physiological indicators?

Measuring personality is being used to improved nonhuman primate welfare. To expand its use, it is important to identify traits that are shared between species and that measures are reliable, easy to use and less time consuming. Combining personality and other indicators strong validation of the results can be obtained. In the present study, we sought to determine if there is a link between physiological stress response (fecal cortisol metabolites), personality (ratings made by animal keepers and reaction to novel objects) and lateralization of the brain (hand preferences) on eight species of nonhuman primates: Callithrix jacchus, Callithrix geoffroyi, Cebuella Pygmaea, Saguinus imperator, Saguinus oedipus, Leontopithecus rosalia, Pithecia pithecia and Nycticebus pygmaeus. Personality assessments achieved good levels of interrater reliability and revealed three components of personality in our sample: fearfulness, activeness and aggressiveness. More exploratory individuals were more active, aggressive and showed higher cortisol metabolite levels. Right-handed subjects inspected novel objects sooner and the strength of the lateralization was linked with individual stress and the aggressiveness component. Our results highlight that there is a relation between personality, lateralization and physiological indicators in nonhuman primates, but although some aspects can be generalized across species and/or sexes others are species/sex dependent.

Towards global data products of Essential Biodiversity Variables on species traits.

Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) allow observation and reporting of global biodiversity change, but a detailed framework for the empirical derivation of specific EBVs has yet to be developed. Here, we re-examine and refine the previous candidate set of species traits EBVs and show how traits related to phenology, morphology, reproduction, physiology and movement can contribute to EBV operationalization. The selected EBVs express intra-specific trait variation and allow monitoring of how organisms respond to global change. We evaluate the societal relevance of species traits EBVs for policy targets and demonstrate how open, interoperable and machine-readable trait data enable the building of EBV data products. We outline collection methods, meta(data) standardization, reproducible workflows, semantic tools and licence requirements for producing species traits EBVs. An operationalization is critical for assessing progress towards biodiversity conservation and sustainable development goals and has wide implications for data-intensive science in ecology, biogeography, conservation and Earth observation.

Use of Primates in Research: What Do We Know About Captive Strepsirrhine Primates?

The increasing debate and restrictions on primate research have prompted many surveys about their status. However, there is a lack of information regarding strepsirrhine primates in the literature. This study provides an overview of research on strepsirrhines in captivity by analyzing scientific articles published from 2010 to 2013 and assessing publicly available government reports in Europe and the United States. Data on taxonomy, country, research area, research class, and type of institution were extracted. The 174 qualifying articles showed that species in the Galagidae and Cheirogaleidae families were used more often in invasive studies of neuroscience and metabolism, while the most commonly used species in noninvasive studies of behavior and cognition were true lemurs (family Lemuridae). France conducted the greatest number of invasive research projects, and the Duke Lemur Center was the institution with the most noninvasive studies. This study investigates how strepsirrhines are used in captive research and identifies issues in need of further review, which suggest that increased participation by the scientific community in the monitoring of strepsirrhine research is warranted.