Frontiers in Social Evolution Seminar

Our species' long childhood is hypothesized to have evolved as a period for learning complex foraging skills. Researchers have focused on assessing this hypothesis, yet studies present inconsistent conclusions regarding the connection between niche complexity, the development of foraging skill development, and ecological knowledge . I will present three studies addressing this hypothesis using both cross cultural [...]

Risk perception - or an individual's susceptibility to perceive a threat (e.g. disease, predator, competitor) - has shaped the physiology, cognition, behavior and ecology of animals for millions of years. While a lot of research has focused on lethal threats (i.e. predation), only recently have we increased our understanding of how animals, and more particularly [...]

Wild orangutans inhabit extremely variable dietary environments with fluctuations in fruit availability that cause significant changes in their dietary compositions and total caloric intake. Many studies on mammals and primates show clear signals of seasonal variation in gut microbiota. A few primate studies demonstrate that gut microbiota may be helping hosts maintain energy balance during [...]

Abstract: The evolutionary ecology of women's health: a biocultural approach Is being a woman a disease? This provocative question highlights the traditional pathologization of the female reproductive function in Western biomedicine since the 19th century. Recently, the social sciences have issued a call to move beyond 'bikini' research, i.e. to [...].