Past Events

Vegetal matter undergoing digestion in herbivores’ stomachs and intestines, digesta, can be an important source of dietary carbohydrates for human foragers. Digesta significantly increases large herbivores’ total caloric yield and broadens their nutritional profile to include three key macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrates) in amounts sufficient to sustain small foraging groups for multiple days without supplementation. Including this underappreciated resource in our foraging hypotheses and models can substantively change their predictions. In this talk, I explore the foraging implications of digesta in two contexts—sex-divided subsistence labor and archaeologically observed increases in plant use and sedentism—using estimates of available protein and carbohydrates in the native tissues and digesta, respectively, of a large ruminant herbivore (Bison bison).  

Raven Garvey, University of Michigan

The human life history is unusual in having a childhood stage characterized by a prolonged period of exceptionally slow growth.  In this talk, Prof. Kuzawa will discuss his team’s work quantifying the costs of the human brain during development, which has had a formative role in the evolution of the human life history.  They find that the costs of the brain do not peak at birth, when relative brain size is largest, but at 4-5 years of age, when the brain consumes the equivalent of 66% of the body’s energy use at rest. This childhood peak in brain costs reflects the proliferation of energy-intensive synapses prior to experience-driven synaptic pruning, and accounts for more energy use than kids expend on physical activity at this age.  Consistent with the hypothesis of a brain-body growth trade-off, maximal brain energy demands co-occur with slowest body weight gain and body weight growth rate is tightly, inversely related to brain energy demands from infancy until puberty. These findings illustrate the brain’s dominance of the body’s energy budget early in life which has constrained the human pattern of growth.  They also reveal an intriguing paradox: children devote a lifetime peak of the body’s energy budget to a non-negotiable expenditure at the same age that energy stores (body fat) are at their lifetime minimum. This energetically precarious state is evidence for the hypothesized importance of social buffering -- cooperative childcare melded with food sharing -- to the evolution of human’s uniquely energy-intensive brain.  The talk will conclude with some of the public health implications of these findings including work underway to incorporate the study of brain energetics into studies of child development.

Chris Kuzawa, Harvard University

Since their “rediscovery” in 1974 after being thought extinct, the yellow-tailed woolly monkey – Lagothrix (formerly Oreonax) flavicauda – has been a focal point for primate conservation both in Perú and across the globe. Despite this, the species has rarely been studied – in part due to the remoteness and relatively inaccessible terrain of its cloud forest habitat on the eastern slopes of the Tropical Andes. Despite these challenges recent developments in technology, research infrastructure, and the tireless ongoing work of conservation organizations at multiple social and political levels have fostered several exciting new developments. In collaboration with conservation NGOs Yunkawasi and Neotropical Primate Conservation, and the Oxford Nanopore-based in situ Wildlife Conservation Lab at Los Amigos Biological Station in Madre de Dios, my research group has focused on developing multiple new research sites in Perú to foster the unique potential of yellow-tailed woolly monkeys as behavioral and genetic models for understanding high-elevation adaptations and the unique ecology of the Tropical Andes. With help from students, collaborators, and local community members, I’ll present some of the more exciting developments from this effort, including the ongoing development of a reference genome; the characterization and establishment of research with an isolated remnant population of the species far south of their previously known range; genomics research ranging from DNA metabarcoding to characterize diet; fecal microbiome and viromics to better characterize the species absent our ability to conduct invasive sampling; and the potential of thermal drones to help local communities more easily conduct conservation monitoring. With these efforts, we hope to establish a strong base both locally and internationally for the next 50 years of yellow-tailed woolly monkey research and conservation.

Dr. Chris Schmitt, Boston University

Studying sociality in primates can be challenging because individual priorities do not necessarily align with group cohesion. Social stability can be disrupted or reinforced through individual action – yet, the group itself can limit such action. I will discuss variation in sociality across multiple scales and share observations of how individuals socially integrate, or endure challenges, according to their circumstances. I also discuss analytical challenges behind concepts such as “stability” and predictability. Ultimately, group cohesion and individual expression vary across contexts – even in captivity – and are not easily simplified into universal truisms.  

Alexander Pritchard, UC Davis

Rebecca Lewis, University of Texas- Austin

Coren Lee Apicella, University of Pennsylvania

Shara Bailey, New York University

Teresa Steele, University of California -Davis

Robert Lynch, Pennsylvania State University, April 26

Kevin Hatala & Erin Marie Williams, Chatham University, April 19

Anthony Lopez, Washington State University, Vancouver, April 12

Luca Pozzi, University of Texas-San Antonio, March 29

Stephanie Poindexter, University of Buffalo, March 1

Radu Iovita, New York University, February 16