Nandita Garud: University of California, Los AngelesThe human gut microbiome is comprised of a complex ecosystem of microbes that reside inside of us and play an important role in our health. With as many as a billion new mutations entering our microbiomes per day, bacterial genomes inside us have a great opportunity to evolve rapidly, […]
Courtney Meehan: Washington State University Throughout our evolutionary history, and in much of the world today, human infancy has been characterized by a host of ancestral traits which include frequent maternal-infant contact, on-demand breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and cooperative breeding. These ancestral characteristics have, in part, supported the development of our altricial infants and enabled reproductive success […]
Melanie Martin: University of WashingtonAcross past and present human populations, breastfeeding and weaning practices have been demonstrably varied. Though this variation is largely influenced by ecological and socioeconomic factors, comparative primate and human biological and cross-cultural evidence further suggests that flexible mixed-feeding is an evolved human strategy. In this talk, I review the differences in […]
Josh Snodgrass: University of OregonImmune function is an energetically costly physiological activity that can divert calories and other resources away from less immediately essential life history functions such as growth. However, direct evidence for immune-related tradeoffs among humans remains sparse. In this talk, I discuss longitudinal research among Shuar children (4-11 years old) that uses […]
Dan Hruschka: Arizona State University Replicating a study among our fellow humans requires a researcher to interact with study participants according to protocols that are comparable with previous studies. However, thanks to humanity’s rich capacity for cultural learning, it can be challenging to identify what counts as a “comparable protocol” across different human groups. Specifically, […]
Raziel Davison: University of California, Santa Barbara We investigate human life history evolution by comparing smallscale subsistence societies and chimpanzees to identify the roles that fertility and mortality play in driving population-level fitness differences. We discuss differences in the selection pressures facing individuals of different ages and to make inferences about the trajectory of human […]
Ashley Hazel: Stanford UniversityPopulations that are dependent upon physical environments for their immediate livelihoods utilize subsistence strategies that are both well adapted to predictable environmental variability (e.g., seasonality) and resilient to unpredictable shocks (e.g., drought). Livelihood strategies that entail high degrees of mobility typically have temporal and spatial heterogeneities in social contact, which influences infection […]
Alexandra Binder: University of California, Los AngelesThere is extensive epidemiologic and experimental evidence linking early life conditions to adult health. Epigenetic modifications are suspected to play a role in mediating these associations by providing a cellular memory of gene regulation shaped by exposures during critical windows of development. In this lecture, I will discuss some […]
Pam Yeh: University of California, Los AngelesAll natural populations deal with multiple stressors. Yet there is limited understanding of how populations are impacted by higher-order interactions — more than two stressors. In this talk I will explain my new conceptual and experimental work to examine higher-order interactions among antibiotics in bacterial populations. I will also […]
Hazel Byrne: University of California, Los AngelesNeotropical primates are a diverse clade of primates that inhabit South and Central America. Broadly speaking, in comparison to "Old World" primates originating in Africa and Asia, most Neotropical primates are strikingly understudied with many outstanding questions regarding their evolution. Among the least studied and appreciated groups are the […]
