In the DFG research group entitled "Sociality and Health in Primates", scientists from Göttingen, Berlin and Leipzig investigate the effects that group living has on the health of wild lemurs, monkeys and apes. Initiator and spokesperson for the research group is Peter Kappeler, who has a joint professorship at the University of Göttingen and the German Primate Center (DPZ). The German Research Foundation (DFG) has provided financial support for the research group for a total of six years, starting in 2015.

The scientists of the research group investigate how aspects of sociality, such as social stress, friendships or group size, affect susceptibility the health of wild primates. The scientists study the social factors in great detail, measure physiological indicators of health and estimate the consequences of variable health for individual survival and reproductive success. Because it has been known for years that socially well-integrated individual baboons and humans live longer and have more offspring compared to socially stressed or isolated individuals, the focus on the physiological mechanisms that mediate these effects, but also the detailed behavioral and fitness data can make important contributions to this field of research.

In seven current research projects, scientists from the DPZ, the University of Göttingen, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig) and the Robert Koch Institute (Berlin), examine the effects of social variables, such as group size, dominance rank or social support on different aspects and indicators of health and endocrine profiles. To this end, the scientists specifically measure stress hormones, parasite burden and physiological balance non-invasively in wild lemurs, baboons and chimpanzees. Other projects focus on the effects of aging or prenatal stress on health and sociality, the determinants of gut microbiome composition, and the relationships between social organization and the diversity of parasite and symbiont diversity.

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SoHaPi 2 Retreat in November 2019 (RKI, Berlin)

The SoHaPi 2 crew met in Berlin for their 2^nd retreat this year. The PhD students started off with a very interesting workshop on gender biases and networking given by Peter Kronenberg from NaturalScience.careers (http://naturalscience.careers/en/). On the second and third day, we had vivid discussions about microbiome analyses, communicated updates on the ongoing projects and welcomed our two invited guests, John Baines (MPI for evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany) and Beth Archie (University of Notre Dame, Indiana, US). Prof. Baines gave an intriguing presentation on genetic and microbial risk factors for chronic gastrointestinal diseases. Prof. Archie presented her newest work on social integration and gut microbiomes from her long-term field site of the Amboseli Baboon Project.

The students at the workshop.

Beth Archie presenting her work in front of a highly interested crowd of SoHaPis.

John Baines giving insights into risk factors for chronic gastrointestinal diseases in humans.