Capture from the wild has long-term costs on reproductive success in Asian elephants

: Lahdenperä M, Jackson J, Htut W, Lummaa V

Publisher: ROYAL SOC

: London

: 2019

: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

: PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

: P ROY SOC B-BIOL SCI

: ARTN 20191584

: 286

: 1912

: 9

: 0962-8452

: 1471-2954

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.1584

Capturing wild animals is common for conservation, economic or research purposes. Understanding how capture itself affects lifetime fitness measures is often difficult because wild and captive populations live in very different environments and there is a need for long-term lite-history data. Here, we show how wild capture influences reproduction in 2685 female Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) used in the timber industry in Myanmar. Wild-caught females demonstrated a consistent reduction in breeding success relative to captive-born females, with significantly lower lifetime reproduction probabilities, lower breeding probabilities at peak reproductive ages and a later age of first reproduction. Furthermore, these negative effects lasted for over decade, and there was a significant influence on the next generation: wild-caught females had calves with reduced survival to age 5. Our results suggest that wild capture has long-term consequences tor reproduction, which is important not only for elephants, but also for other species in captivity.