How infants learn to eat plants (and why they may not want to) Annie E. Wertz Assistant Professor, Psychological & Brain Sciences University of California, Santa Barbara Life is mostly plants. Plants constitute an estimated 80% of the biomass on Earth and are concentrated in terrestrial environments. Millions of animal species rely on plants to […]
Roadside primates: Balancing risks and rewards in anthropogenic environments Erin Riley Professor, Anthropology, San Diego State University In the contemporary era it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a primate population that has not experienced some form of anthropogenic influence. Primates living in anthropogenic spaces may benefit from access to novel food resources, such as […]
Unlike humans, who can maintain relationships and communities beyond temporal and spatial boundaries, nonhuman primates’ relationships are fundamentally grounded in embodied, immediate interactions. In this talk, I present two empirical studies on resource conflicts in semi-naturalistic primate groups, showing how their behavior and decision-making are best understood by considering social and ecological contexts. The first […]
Early life experiences are widely thought to shape adult behavior, health, and fitness across the tree of life. The deep evolutionary roots of these "early life effects"—seen in organisms ranging from plants to primates—have sparked considerable interest in their biological underpinnings. While individual variation in responses to early life adversity is well recognized, new research […]
This talk will attempt to answer three questions: 1) Do plants communicate about their risk of herbivory? 2) Do plants have individual personalities with respect to communication? 3) Why does this matter? Biologists have known for a long time that plants sense their environments and respond accordingly, i.e., they exhibit “behavior.” Whether they communicate with […]
Abstract: Physicist Max Planck famously said that "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die". This is basically a theory of human cultural change, one rooted primarily in the mechanisms of differential recruitment, inheritance and demography. If the Planck […]
Abstract: Loneliness as a public health concern has exploded in recent years. Recognition of its widespread prevalence and presumed recency have led to declarations that a “loneliness epidemic” faces industrialized populations. Changes to certain aspects of modern life—fewer face-to-face interactions, more time spent alone, more people living by themselves—are thought to exacerbate loneliness, and imply […]
Abstract: Human pregnancy is an energetically demanding and socially embedded process that requires mothers to balance competing physiological needs while maintaining fetal development. In this talk, I integrate biocultural and mechanistic approaches to examine how social, ecological, and energetic environments become biologically embedded during gestation. Drawing on mixed-methods research with Latina women in the U.S., […]
Abstract: Climate change is a growing threat to population health globally, with infants and young children living in low income and lower-and-middle income countries at particularly high risk of experiencing health and nutritional challenges. The sources of these challenges include alterations to breastfeeding practices, decreased access to food, due to lower crop and fishing yields and higher […]
Abstract: The theory of developmental origins of health and disease predicts pregnancy and infancy to be sensitive early periods of development with long term impacts on trajectories of growth and health across the life course. At a population level, preterm births have been linked to stressful group events, including natural disasters and sociopolitical stressors. Similarly, […]
