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Behavioral Ecology Advance Access published online on June 19, 2006
Behavioral Ecology, doi:10.1093/beheco/arl006
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Received September 20, 2005
Revised March 13, 2006
Accepted April 27, 2006

Article

The ecology of conception and pregnancy failure in wild baboons

Jacinta C. Beehner 1 *, Daphne A. Onderdonk 1, Susan C. Alberts 2, and Jeanne Altmann 3

1 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
2 Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27701, USA; Institute of Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya
3 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; Institute of Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya; Department of Conservation Biology, Chicago Zoological Society, Brookfield, IL 60513, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Jacinta C. Beehner, E-mail: jbeehner{at}princeton.edu


  Abstract

Environmental conditions are a key factor mediating reproductive success or failure. Consequently, many mammalian taxa have breeding seasons that coordinate critical reproductive stages with optimal environmental conditions. However, in contrast with most mammals, baboons (Papio cynocephalus) of Kenya reproduce throughout the year. Here we depart from the typical approach of evaluating seasonal effects on reproduction and engage in a more fine-grained analysis of the actual ecological conditions leading up to reproduction for females. Our aim was to determine how environmental conditions, in combination with social and demographic factors, might mediate baboon reproduction. The data set includes all female reproductive cycles from multiple baboon groups in the Amboseli basin between 1976 and 2004. Results indicate that after periods of drought or extreme heat, females were significantly less likely to cycle than expected. If females did cycle after these conditions, they were less likely to conceive; and if they did conceive after drought (heat effects were nonsignificant), they were less likely to have a successful pregnancy. Age also significantly predicted conceptive failure; conceptive probability was lowest among the youngest and oldest cycling females. There was also a trend for high ambient temperatures to contribute to fetal loss during the first trimester but not other trimesters. Finally, group size and drought conditions interacted in their effects on the probability of conception. Although females in all groups had equal conception probabilities during optimal conditions, females in large groups were less likely than those in small groups to conceive during periods of drought. These results indicate that in a highly variable environment, baboon reproductive success is mediated by the interaction between proximate ecological conditions and individual demographic factors.

Keywords: conception; ecology of reproduction; estrous cycle; fetal loss; Papio.
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