Susan Alberts, Duke University: "The medicine of life": Social life and survival in primates

Longitudinal studies of animal social behavior and demography allow us to understand how environments at one stage of life affect fitness outcomes at another stage of life. This question is important both in the biological sciences and in the human social sciences. Here, I briefly review evidence from the human social sciences that document, and raise important questions about, the profound links between early life, adult life, and longevity. Next, I draw parallels between those studies and biological studies of wild animal systems, where researchers have long studied these links. I argue that wild animal systems, by answering questions that are difficult or impossible to answer in human studies, shed light on the deep evolutionary roots of the human sensitivity to the social environment. They also provide insight into the mechanisms by which environments at one stage of life affect survival outcomes at a later stage of life. Most of the examples I discuss come from my long-term research project, the Amboseli Baboon Research Project.