Dolphins with more close friends age slower
A study of the epigenetic age of dolphins found that animals with more high-quality friendships were biologically younger than their lonely companions.
Male bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in Shark Bay, Western Australia are known to form close bonds with each other.
Auscape/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Watching dolphins play can generate wonder and admiration. Although these joyful bonds may seem fleeting, a subgroup of dolphins form complex alliances based on strong, lifelong friendships. And these bonds may slow aging, a recent study suggests.
To explore that relationship, researchers drew on more than four decades of behavioral observations of a well-studied group of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia. New Research Showed that social relationships influence the pace of biological aging in dolphins.
Shark Bay bottlenose dolphins form lifelong relationships that create some of the most complex social structures in the animal world. In these dolphins, males with close social bonds spend most of their time together, often traveling in the same group, searching for food, mating, and resting.
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Within the Shark Bay population, researchers focused on 38 male dolphins with accurately known chronological ages. The team collected skin samples from dolphins to measure DNA methylation patterns – biochemical modifications that determine which genes are active – in order to estimate their biological age. These patterns were analyzed by multiple epigenetic clocks, the gold-standard tool for estimating biological age. The main clock used in the study was a version the team had calibrated specifically for the Shark Bay dolphin population to measure regular changes in chemical markers on DNA that accumulate over the course of a lifetime.
“Aging is a complex process that involves DNA damage (such as) double-strand DNA breaks – it’s not just mitochondria working faster or dying out or suddenly having lots of mutations,” says Livia Gerber, lead author of the study.
Then a postdoctoral fellow at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Gerber and his team found that dolphins with strong long-term social partnerships were biologically younger than their more solitary counterparts, as measured by epigenetic markers.
Social isolation can keep animals under stress for long periods of time. and constant exposure to stress hormones cortisol Negatively impacts the health of many animals including humans. Social animals like dolphins thrive in a social context, Gerber says. “If they lack that social network, it puts a lot of stress on their bodies, which causes them to age faster,” she says.
In contrast, evidence shows that positive social interactions in dolphins and other animals are associated with release oxytocinA hormone associated with social bonding and well-being.
“This research shows that, across all mammals, social bonds can buffer against stress and reduce the rate of aging,” says Ashley Barratclough, a conservation medicine veterinarian at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in California, who was not involved in the study.
It is noteworthy that the quality of relationships, rather than just the size of the social group, influenced the epigenetic aging of Shark Bay dolphins. The type of social interaction also matters because large social groups can, paradoxically, have a negative impact on dolphin aging, says Barratclough. She adds, “Improving our understanding of these mechanisms could help conserve these species.”
Research shows that the quality of dolphins’ relationships has a direct impact on their aging process. Like humans, cetaceans thrive when they feel loved and have a sense of belonging.
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