Parenting through adversity: social, parental and intergenerational effects on individual life histories in a wild primate

Résumé

For long-lived social species, including humans and nonhuman primates, parental and social environments, as well as ecological influences, can have powerful effects on well-being and survival. The patterns and processes underlying these effects are of central interest in biomedicine, public health, and evolutionary biology. In humans, these topics can be difficult to study because of our long lifespans and many environmental and behavioral confounds; these questions are sometimes more accessible in studies of wild primates, which are closely related and offer an accelerated life course relative to humans, as well as a simplified model of complex human societies. Long-term studies can also provide prospective, full life-course data combined with real-time, direct observations of behavior. Here, I synthesize recent research on social, parental, intergenerational, and ecological determinants of survival in wild baboons in the Amboseli basin of southern Kenya. I describe how social, parental, intergenerational, and ecological are linked to survival in this population. I also reflect on several evolutionary opportunities and constraints associated with the extended offspring dependence in primates.