Regulating body temperature another reason for nocturnal primate births, says new U of L study

trevor.kenney — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 16:56:16 +0000

Scientists have long understood the majority of primate births, including humans, occur during the inactive phase, or at night. In the wild it stands to reason, because the night offers the birthing mother decreased chance of predation, harassment from her companions and the need to keep up with a travelling group.

A vervet monkey infant with its mother.

A new paper from a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge research team led by Drs. Louise Barrett and Peter Henzi (psychology) offers evidence of another evolutionary factor that favours nocturnal births. They argue the birthing process is enhanced at night because environmental conditions enable the mother’s physiology to cope more effectively with the changes in body temperature associated with giving birth.

“We already know we have this daily rhythm in our body temperature,” says Barrett, who along with researchers from Nottingham Trent ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ (UK) and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of the Witwatersrand Medical School (South Africa), observed three groups of wild vervet monkeys on the Samara Private Game Reserve, Eastern Cape, South Africa for just over seven years. “We thought maybe this would be an advantage for these females if they were timing birth when their body temperature was naturally lowering anyway.”

As the birth experience expends an incredible amount of the mother’s energy, to use nature rather than direct physiological energy to lower and then raise body temperature, the mother is able to use that saved energy on her newborn.

The vervets were all implanted with data logging devices, allowing the scientists to track their core body temperatures throughout the 24-hour cycle. They logged non-maternal vervets’ temperature fluctuations and noticed a gradual decline in core body temperature at the onset of the evening and through the night before a similar rise following dawn. The maternal vervets saw similar fluctuations but over a much shorter window of time, the actual span of the birthing process.

“Growing a baby, going through a birth and then feeding a baby are very expensive activities physiologically,” says Barrett. “Anything that would save energy, such as tying the thermoregulatory process to the natural decline in core body temperature in the early evening hours makes sense and is worth investigating.”

In fact, the researchers were lucky enough to track a birth in the early morning hours, when the day is at its coldest, and recorded just how stark the temperature difference was on the mother and how much harder she had to work to get her core body temperature out of its near hypothermic state.

“When she gave birth in the early morning, her temperature dropped to 34 degrees, which is a significant drop (the mean low temperature for recorded nocturnal births was 35.9 degrees), so she would have had to work much harder physiologically to get back up to a normal range temperature,” says Barrett. “That’s energy she could have been putting into milk production and tending to her newborn.”

The study gives a fascinating look into the birthing process and further sheds light on why night-time births are not only more common for primates and humans alike, but why they may have evolved this way.

Link to paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0574

Graduate students honoured with research awards

trevor.kenney — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:34:27 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge celebrated the achievements of 21 graduate students last night at the 2012 Graduate Student Research Awards reception.

"These graduate students are exemplars of academic achievement," says Dr. Robert Wood, dean of the School of Graduate Studies. "The exciting academic work that they do is advancing the frontiers of knowledge and creativity, and it cultivates and builds an essential foundation for our growing reputation as a comprehensive university. Indeed, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ community is immensely proud of these accomplished graduate student scholars."

Following is a list of the 2012 award winners.

Alberta Innovates Health Solutions
Erin Zelinski
(Robert Sutherland)
Neuroscience

Corinne Sidler
(Olga Kovalchuk)
Biological Sciences

Alberta Innovates - Technology Futures
Aaron Mullin
(Craig Coburn)
Geography

Alberta Cancer Foundation
Lidiya Luzhna
(Olga Kovalchuk)
Biological Sciences

Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral (NSERC)
Patrick Barks
(Robert Laird)
Biological Sciences

Andrew Hudson
(Camron Goater & Tony Russell)
Biological Sciences

Jenni Karl
(Ian Whishaw)
Neuroscience

Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship Master (NSERC)
Kathryn Kuchapski
(Joseph Rasmussen)
Biological Sciences

Kirsten Rosler
(Hans-Joachim Wieden)
Chemistry and Biochemistry

Aaron Mullin
(Craig Coburn)
Geography

Natalie Freeman
(Louise Barrett & Peter Henzi)
Psychology

Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship Master's (SSHRC)
Gillian Ayers
(Claudia Malacrida)
Sociology

Leslie Bush
(Robbin Derry)
Management

Stacey Leavitt
(Michelle Helstein & Sean Brayton)
Kinesiology & Physical Education

Daniel Rutledge
(Sameer Deshpande)
Management

Rachel Shields
(Jason Laurendeau)
Sociology

Mark Bruce
(Dawn McBride)
Education

School of Graduate Studies Fellowship
Darcy Best
(Hadi Kharaghani)
Mathmatics & Computer Science

Health Quality Council of Alberta
Shannon Vandenberg
(Judith Kulig)
Health Sciences

endMS
Brietta Gerrard
(Artur Luczak)
Neuroscience

Alberta Gambling Research Institute
Scott Oberg
(Matthew Tata)
Neuroscience

UNews - Peter Henzi

Regulating body temperature another reason for nocturnal primate births, says new U of L study

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Graduate students honoured with research awards

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