Coordination Funds

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Peter M. Kappeler
• Subject Area: Sensory and Behavioural Biology ; Evolution, Anthropology
• Term: from 2014 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 244372499

Strong links between sociality and fitness have long been identified in humans and non-human primates. For example, in baboons and humans alike, socially well-connected individuals enjoy substantially greater longevity, whereas socially stressed or isolated individuals suffer fitness costs. However, the proximate mechanisms mediating these positive (direct or buffering) or negative effects remain largely unexplored. Clinical studies indicate that health and condition may play important roles in mediating this relationship between sociality and fitness by influencing how energy is allocated to survival, maintenance and reproduction. However, the relative importance of social factors, how exactly social roles and networks affect susceptibility to disease, how social stress mediates and modulates these links, and how social factors determine the transmission of health-relevant micro-organisms remains poorly studied in wild primate populations. The diversity of primate social systems provides excellent opportunities for comparative studies of the effects of social variables, such as group size, dominance rank, social support and mating tactics on various aspects and indicators of health and physical condition, including levels of stress hormones, parasite load and physiological homeostasis. The transmission of infectious diseases, including sexually-transmitted diseases, within and among social units is an important applied aspect of the interactions between sociality and health. The individual projects comprising the building blocks of this Research Unit will yield a comprehensive comparative data set to address the above relationships based on coordinated research on wild lemurs and anthropoids, including Great Apes. Moreover, this Research Unit will combine primate fieldwork with molecular work and theoretical modeling in a novel way by bringing together experts from the respective national centers of excellence, including many young and female scientists. Finally, we aim to overcome the traditional fragmentation between primate behavioral ecology and biomedical research by generating a close network of collaborations within and between projects and by training a cohort of PhD students in a new and unique program.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 2136: Sociality and Health in Primates