Reevaluating the relationship between female sociality and infant survival in wild baboons.

ABSTRACT: Over the past few decades, studies have provided strong evidence that the robust links between the social environment, health, and survival found in humans also extend to nonhuman social animals. A number of these studies emphasize the early life origins of these effects. For example, in several social mammals, more socially engaged mothers have infants with higher rates of survival compared to less socially engaged mothers, suggesting that positive maternal social relationships causally improve offspring survival. Here, we show that the relationship between infant survival and maternal sociality is confounded by previously underappreciated variation in female social behavior linked to changes in reproductive state and the presence of a live infant. Using data from a population of wild bab

SUBMITTER: Creighton MJA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12107124 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature