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      Social influences on survival and reproduction: Insights from a long‐term study of wild baboons

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          Abstract

          1. For social species, the environment has two components: physical and social. The social environment modifies the individual's interaction with the physical environment, and the physical environment may in turn impact individuals’ social relationships. This interplay can generate considerable variation among individuals in survival and reproduction. Here, I synthesize more than four decades of research on the baboons of the Amboseli basin in southern Kenya to illustrate how social and physical environments interact to affect reproduction and survival.

          2. For immature baboons, social behaviour can both mitigate and exacerbate the challenge of survival. Only c. 50% of live‐born females and c. 44% of live‐born males reach the median age of first reproduction. Variation in pre‐adult survival, growth and development is associated with multiple aspects of the social environment. For instance, conspecifics provide direct care and are a major source of social knowledge about food and the environment, but conspecifics can also represent a direct threat to survival through infanticide.

          3. In adulthood, both competition (within and between social groups) and cooperative affiliation (i.e. collective action and/or the exchange of social resources such as grooming) are prominent features of baboon social life and have important consequences for reproduction and survival. For instance, adult females with higher social dominance ranks have accelerated reproduction, and adult females that engage in more frequent affiliative social interactions have higher survival throughout adulthood.

          4. The early life environment also has important consequences for adult reproduction and survival, as in a number of other bird and mammal species. In seasonal breeders, early life effects often apply to entire cohorts; in contrast, in nonseasonal and highly social species such as baboons, early life effects are more individual‐specific, stemming from considerable variation not only in the early physical environment (even if they are born in the same year) but also in the particulars of their social environment.

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          Social networks predict gut microbiome composition in wild baboons

          Social relationships have profound effects on health in humans and other primates, but the mechanisms that explain this relationship are not well understood. Using shotgun metagenomic data from wild baboons, we found that social group membership and social network relationships predicted both the taxonomic structure of the gut microbiome and the structure of genes encoded by gut microbial species. Rates of interaction directly explained variation in the gut microbiome, even after controlling for diet, kinship, and shared environments. They therefore strongly implicate direct physical contact among social partners in the transmission of gut microbial species. We identified 51 socially structured taxa, which were significantly enriched for anaerobic and non-spore-forming lifestyles. Our results argue that social interactions are an important determinant of gut microbiome composition in natural animal populations—a relationship with important ramifications for understanding how social relationships influence health, as well as the evolution of group living. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.05224.001
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            The benefits of social capital: close social bonds among female baboons enhance offspring survival.

            Sociality has evolved in many animal taxa, but primates are unusual because they establish highly differentiated bonds with other group members. Such bonds are particularly pronounced among females in species like baboons, with female philopatry and male dispersal. These relationships seem to confer a number of short-term benefits on females, and sociality enhances infant survival in some populations. However, the long-term consequences of social bonds among adult females have not been well established. Here we provide the first direct evidence that social relationships among female baboons convey fitness benefits. In a group of free-ranging baboons, Papio cynocephalus ursinus, the offspring of females who formed strong social bonds with other females lived significantly longer than the offspring of females who formed weaker social bonds. These survival benefits were independent of maternal dominance rank and number of kin and extended into offspring adulthood. In particular, females who formed stronger bonds with their mothers and adult daughters experienced higher offspring survival rates than females who formed weaker bonds. For females lacking mothers or adult daughters, offspring survival was closely linked to bonds between maternal sisters. These results parallel those from human studies, which show that greater social integration is generally associated with reduced mortality and better physical and mental health, particularly for women.
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              Accelerated human population growth at protected area edges.

              Protected areas (PAs) have long been criticized as creations of and for an elite few, where associated costs, but few benefits, are borne by marginalized rural communities. Contrary to predictions of this argument, we found that average human population growth rates on the borders of 306 PAs in 45 countries in Africa and Latin America were nearly double average rural growth, suggesting that PAs attract, rather than repel, human settlement. Higher population growth on PA edges is evident across ecoregions, countries, and continents and is correlated positively with international donor investment in national conservation programs and an index of park-related funding. These findings provide insight on the value of PAs for local people, but also highlight a looming threat to PA effectiveness and biodiversity conservation.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                alberts@duke.edu
                Journal
                J Anim Ecol
                J Anim Ecol
                10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2656
                JANE
                The Journal of Animal Ecology
                John Wiley and Sons Inc. (Hoboken )
                0021-8790
                1365-2656
                21 August 2018
                January 2019
                : 88
                : 1 , Special Feature: Eco‐evolutionary dynamics across scales ( doiID: 10.1111/jane.2019.88.issue-1 )
                : 47-66
                Affiliations
                [ 1 ] Departments of Biology and Evolutionary Anthropology Duke University Durham North Carolina
                [ 2 ] Institute of Primate Research National Museums of Kenya Karen Nairobi Kenya
                Author notes
                [*] [* ] Correspondence

                Susan C. Alberts

                Email: alberts@ 123456duke.edu

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1313-488X
                Article
                JANE12887
                10.1111/1365-2656.12887
                6340732
                30033518
                8b283ddd-057a-4480-a4ea-7d1cf069603d
                © 2018 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society

                This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 27 January 2018
                : 28 June 2018
                Page count
                Figures: 6, Tables: 0, Pages: 20, Words: 18362
                Funding
                Funded by: Duke University
                Funded by: National Science Foundation
                Award ID: IOS 1456832
                Funded by: National Institutes of Health
                Award ID: R01AG053330
                Award ID: P01AG031719
                Categories
                Synthesis
                Synthesis
                Custom metadata
                2.0
                jane12887
                January 2019
                Converter:WILEY_ML3GV2_TO_NLMPMC version:5.5.9 mode:remove_FC converted:18.02.2019

                Ecology
                baboons,early life effects,environmental effects,long‐term study,primates,reproduction,social behavior,survival

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