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SUMMARY:What’s so social about primate sociability? - Robin Dunbar (Univ
 ersity of Oxford)
DTSTART:20171101T163000Z
DTEND:20171101T173000Z
UID:TALK85741@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Ann Van Baelen
DESCRIPTION:Primatologists have often claimed that primates have a distinc
 tive form of sociality\; most other ethologists have been skeptical. Yet p
 rimates manifestly have much bigger brains than anyone else\, and they don
 t use them for foraging (occasional vague claims to this effect notwithsta
 nding). I shall use new analyses of the demography and social behaviour of
  primates to argue that the central problem for primates (and all mammals)
  has been the need to mitigate an unavoidable consequence of the way mamma
 lian reproductive endocrinology is organised: female fertility is a negati
 ve function of the stresses created when many females live together. Prima
 tes that have not found a solution are confined to living in small groups\
 ; those that needed to live in large groups to cope with increased predati
 on risk evolved grooming-based coalitionary alliances as a form of mutual 
 protection\, but these required a significant increase in brain size to ma
 nage complexly structured relationships. I shall argue that this simple pr
 inciple explains the pattern of group sizes in primates\, as well as why s
 pecies like gelada and hamadryas baboons have highly structured social sys
 tems built around harems.
LOCATION:Seminar Room\, Henry Wellcome Building\, Division of Biological A
 nthropology\, Fitzwilliam Street\, Cambridge\, CB2 3QG
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