Family network size and survival across the lifespan of female macaques.

ABSTRACT: Two decades of research suggest social relationships have a common evolutionary basis in humans and other gregarious mammals. Critical to the support of this idea is growing evidence that mortality is influenced by social integration, but when these effects emerge and how long they last is mostly unknown. Here, we report in adult female macaques that the impact of number of close adult female relatives, a proxy for social integration, on survival is not experienced uniformly across the life course; prime-aged females with a greater number of relatives had better survival outcomes compared with prime-aged females with fewer relatives, whereas no such effect was found in older females. Group size and dominance rank did not influence this result. Older females were less frequent targets of ag

SUBMITTER: Brent LJN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5443955 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature