Diurnal pastoralism does not reduce juvenile recruitment nor elevate allostatic load in spotted hyenas

1. Anthropogenic activity can have substantial effects on wildlife. These effects may vary according to the characteristics of the activity and the species involved. While effects on behavior are well-studied, studies of effects on fitness and physiology are scarce, particularly for group-living species.
2. We exploited a natural experimental setup to investigate the effect of diurnal pastoralism on juvenile recruitment and allostatic load in a population of free-ranging spotted hyenas in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania, over a 24-year period.
3. Pastoralism was restricted to the territories of two of the eight study clans, allowing us to compare juvenile recruitment in exposed and unexposed clans. We also compared fecal glucocorticoid metabolite concentrations (fGMC) – a biomarker of an organism’s allostatic load – between exposed and unexposed clans using 975 fecal samples from 475 hyenas.
4. We found no detectable difference in juvenile recruitment nor fGMC between the exposed and un...