s. My study will comprise nine years of demographic, dominance and genetic data of all groups of the rhesus macaque population of Cayo Santiago. We will investigate EGPs from different perspectives including from the social group level, male and female individual perspective.
Genomic consequences of the social environment and resilience during aging
Dr. Noah Snyder-Mackler, University of Washington
As in humans, the social environment has also been linked to mortality in some nonhuman primates, including close relatives of macaques. More socially integrated individuals are healthier and live longer than less integrated individuals, and this association is the strongest in the oldest individuals in a population. To identify the molecular underpinnings of this link, we draw behavioral and genomic data from Cayo Santiago rhesus macaques. We merge cutting-edge functional genomic analyses (RNA-seq, ATAC-seq, and novel single-cell approaches) with behavioral observation methods to study how behavioral variation might insulate individuals from the detrimental effects of social adversity on health
This research has implications for understanding how social adversity recapitulates, or even accelerates, the changes seen during normal aging. More broadly, identifying the molecular phenotypes on which natural selection acts will lead to a better understanding of both the evolution of affiliative social behaviors and the well-documented link between sociality and components of fitness.
The biological basis of social relationships and cooperation
Dr. Lauren Brent, University of Exeter
The aim of this research is to determine why social relationships are formed and how they are maintained. Within groups, individuals differ in their tendencies to interact with others and in how deeply embedded they are in their social networks. This research investigates the heritable basis of individual differences in sociality, along with their physiological causes and impacts on health, life-history, and fitness. In addition, this research explores the evolutionary mechanisms that underpin social dynamics and asks how cooperation is maintained in animal societies.
Heterogeneity of life courses
Dr. Raisa Hernandez-Pacheco, California State University at Long Beach
Predicting ecological and evolutionary dynamics requires an understanding of the diversity of life courses among individuals, since life courses shape demography, which in turn drives evolution. Heterogeneity among individuals influences the speed of adaptive and neutral evolutionary processes, but it is less clear how biotic and abiotic environmental fluctuations influence variability among individuals. Such variability is reflected in individual life courses, defined as the sequence of stages experienced during an individual’s life. Identifying the sources of variation in life courses remains a fundamental task to address in order to understand the meaning and significance of phenotypic variation within populations. A multi-stage model using a first-order Markov process describing reproductive dynamics, as well as estimates of population entropy are being used.
Understanding of Animate and Inanimate Objects in Rhesus Macaques
Dr. Laurie Santos, Yale University
The aim of this study is to explore what rhesus macaques understand about the physical and social world. This project first examines whether rhesus monkeys reason about agents in the same way as humans do – by considering their intentions, beliefs, and desires. These questions are to significant importance in the field of developmental psychology and comparative cognition – the question of whether non-human primates can reason about objects and agents has been one of the longest-standing questions in the field of primate cognition. In addition, learning more about how monkeys reason about agents will provide a potential animal model of human disorders to agency understanding (e.g. autism).
Genetics of Social Decision Making in Rhesus Macaques
Dr. Michel Platt, University of Pennsylvania
The current investigation seeks to understand t