Our new article is out this week on social hair plucking, published as open access in JAAWS! doi.org/10.1080/1088...

Happy to have worked with Rosemary Blersch for her new article in a special issue of Animal Behaviour on multilayer networks for animal sociality. What is the interplay between social behavior and dominance rank change? Do these associations change with greater levels of social complexity?

New paper out in Ecology & Evolution! 🐺🐄 We were invited to collaborate on this project based on the McCowan-Vandeleest lab’s work using hair cortisol as a welfare indicator in non-human primates — a method we’re now bringing to a very different species and ecology. 🧵 1/8 @vanditto.bsky.social

In a seasonally breeding primate, how much does the shared experience of motherhood alter behavior? We examined social behaviors, connectivity, and markers of health across reproductive phases. Read about the maternal experience in Animal Reproduction Science! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The social circumstances of the maternal experience and its biobehavioral associations, in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta)

Motherhood is a physiologically and behaviorally demanding process. We sought to examine how such changes might be expected to alter a mother’s social…

sciencedirect.com

This article was a really fun synthesis, out now! I bridged meta-analyses for the current state of interrater reliability in primate personality research with expectations simulated off of how we collect ratings and measure their reliability. doi.org/10.1037/com0...

Pleased to have been a part of this project, now detailed by Dr. Rosemary Blersch (not on BlueSky) based on work in the McCowan-Vandeleest Laboratory for Biobehavioral Complexity. Studies often examine effects of clumped resources, we decentralized food provisioning to increase social tolerance.

Food Distribution, But Not Market Forces, Predict Behavioral Social Tolerance in Rhesus Macaques

Decentralizing food resources in rhesus macaques reduced aggression, increased co-feeding and promoted social tolerance, suggesting that distributed resources could enhance group stability and welfar....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Development is lots of 'figuring things out'! But, how do we understand relationships as infants transition away from play🙃? Is play a precursor to other social behaviors, or is proximity or contact🤗 more reflective of partner choice? Read our new work! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Delineating connectivity and quality of peer–peer pre-pubescent rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) relationships, by examining coupled social behaviours | Royal Society Open Science

Infant experiences have lifetime implications for individuals’ social competence. Therefore, lifelong trajectories can be informed by a nuanced understanding of who developing individuals connect with...

royalsocietypublishing.org

🚨 New paper! 🚨 🐒 White-faced capuchins experience high rates of infanticide. 🐒 Infanticide is costly to female reproduction. 🐒 Do females exhibit the Bruce effect (termination of pregnancy) to reduce these costs? 🐒 Spoiler: Nope! Read more ▶️ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Combining multiple behavioral measures of social relationships can reveal stronger associations with biomarkers of health! From @vanditto.bsky.social and the McCowan-Vandeleest lab.

Jessica Alitto (Vandeleest)@vanditto.bsky.social · last yr.

Checkout our new article looking at complexity in social relationships and health out now in PeerJ! peerj.com/articles/191...

New paper from Nalina Aiempichitkijkarn, who recently graduated from the McCowan-Vandeleest laboratory. She is now a postdoc @ California State University, Long Beach! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Assessing the Sociodemographic Factors Associated With Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex Infection Among Free‐Ranging Long‐Tailed Macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in Thailand

This study combines behavioral observations with noninvasive biological sample collection, using freshly defecated feces and rope-baited oral cells, to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Excited to share the outcomes of our new paper introducing predictability to group management practices. A challenging endeavor, because management practices often share unreliable cues. Really happy with how this turned out, possible through lots of support! authors.elsevier.com/a/1khW2cF2Ow...

NSF APPEX invites Seed Ideas for new Working Groups to tackle pandemic risk & response. Have a bold idea to study pandemic expansion? We want to work with you! Learn more: appex.org/seed/

Personality has been one of my favorite topics to research. I was thrilled at the opportunity to publish on personality ratings from three species of wild macaques! Multisite field studies, like this one, are a rarity. NSF-Funded Out Now! doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Personality trait structures across three species of Macaca, using survey ratings of responses to conspecifics and humans

Comparative studies reliant on single personality surveys to rate wild primates are scarce yet remain critical for developing a holistic comparative understanding of personality. Differences in survey...

doi.org

Are you a primate researcher? Please consider contributing to our research survey! Add your knowledge of direct, indirect, or absent human-primate interactions at sites you have visited. Just 15 minutes of your time!

Human-Nonhuman Primate Interactions

This survey has been designed to collect information on the diversity of emergent and shared histories of human-nonhuman primate (NHP) interactions, at sites that responding primate researchers freque...

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