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Experimental provisioning increases play in free-ranging meerkats
Citation
Sharpe, LL and Clutton-Brock, TH and Brotherton, PNM and Cameron, EZ and Cherry, MI, Experimental provisioning increases play in free-ranging meerkats, Animal Behaviour, 64, (1) pp. 113-121. ISSN 0003-3472 (2002) [Refereed Article]
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DOI: doi:10.1006/anbe.2002.3031
Abstract
The sensitivity of play to variations in food availability has been cited as evidence of the costliness of play,
since energetically stressed animals dispense with costly behaviours. However, the causality of the
relationship between nutrition and play has not been adequately tested. Using weight gain as a measure
of food intake, we documented the food consumption of free-ranging meerkat, Suricata suricatta, pups
and found that long-term nutritional status (weight gain over a 6-week period) was positively correlated
with rates of play. We confirmed the causality of this relationship by conducting long-term (4–8 weeks)
provisioning experiments that raised the nutritional status of experimental pups, subadults and adults.
Experimental animals more than doubled their rate of play compared with their nonprovisioned
controls. Short-term variations in food consumption (daily weight gain) were not correlated with
subsequent rates of play, and we used a short-term feeding experiment to document the transitory effects
of hunger satiation. We established that an increase in available energy contributed to the increase in
rates of play, rather than the animals simply having more time available to play as a result of being
released from the constraints of foraging. We conclude that play in meerkats was energetically costly, and
must be adaptive given that the cost of play to juveniles (in terms of future reproductive success) was
potentially high.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Research Division: | Biological Sciences |
| Research Group: | Zoology |
| Research Field: | Animal Developmental and Reproductive Biology |
| Objective Division: | Environment |
| Objective Group: | Control of Pests, Diseases and Exotic Species |
| Objective Field: | Control of Pests, Diseases and Exotic Species not elsewhere classified |
| UTAS Author: | Cameron, EZ (Professor Elissa Cameron) |
| ID Code: | 72618 |
| Year Published: | 2002 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 39 |
| Deposited By: | Zoology |
| Deposited On: | 2011-08-30 |
| Last Modified: | 2011-09-06 |
| Downloads: | 3 View Download Statistics |
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