Premium
Personality Assessment and Its Association With Genetic Factors in Captive A sian and A frican Elephants
Author(s) -
Yasui Saki,
Konno Akitsugu,
Tanaka Masayuki,
Idani Gen'ichi,
Ludwig Arne,
Lieckfeldt Dietmar,
InoueMurayama Miho
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
zoo biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.5
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1098-2361
pISSN - 0733-3188
DOI - 10.1002/zoo.21045
Subject(s) - biology , personality , captivity , neuroticism , personality psychology , genetics , allele , big five personality traits , intraspecific competition , zoology , evolutionary biology , gene , psychology , social psychology
Elephants live in a complex society based on matrilineal groups. Management of captive elephants is difficult, partly because each elephant has a unique personality. For a better understanding of elephant well being in captivity, it would be helpful to systematically evaluate elephants' personalities and their underlying biological basis. We sent elephant' personality questionnaires to keepers of 75 elephants. We also used 196 elephant DNA samples to search for genetic polymorphisms in genes expressed in the brain that have been suggested to be related to personality traits. Three genes, androgen receptor ( AR ), fragile X related mental retardation protein interacting protein ( NUFIP 2 ), and acheate‐scute homologs 1 ( ASH 1 ) contained polymorphic regions. We examined the association of personality with intraspecific genetic variation in 17 A sian and 28 A frican elephants. The results suggest that the ASH 1 genotype was associated with neuroticism in A sian elephants. Subjects with short alleles had lower scores of neuroticism than those with long alleles. This is the first report of an association between a genetic polymorphism and personality in elephants. Zoo Biol. 32:70‐78, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.