Jacinta Beehner
University of Michigan, MI·Ecology & Evolution
Living in groups helps animals defend themselves and find food. It also brings social challenges: individuals compete for allies and mates, and they face stresses such as crowding and fights with neighbors.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Biology
Physiology
- Topics
primatology
capuchin monkeys
non-human primates
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Mar 2027
What they work on
- Test whether female non-human primates use aggression and dominance to monopolize males and gain social benefits such as protection and infant care, using long-term behavioral and demographic databases.
- Measure glucocorticoids (stress hormones) and reproductive hormones in females to determine whether they promote or limit competitive behavior and access to social resources, and how this relates to reproductive success.
- Measure fecal glucocorticoids in 120 wild capuchin monkeys before and after social stressors (fights between groups) and ecological stressors (droughts) to quantify each individual's stress response and test whether it is repeatable.
- Compare two capuchin populations facing food restriction or overcrowding to test whether individuals respond differently to different stressors, and which stress responses affect survival and reproduction.
More about the research
Two field projects in wild primates ask how these social and environmental pressures affect hormones, behavior, survival and reproduction. Both combine long-term behavioral records with hormones measured from field samples.
Why it matters
Stress affects millions of people and animals. Learning how wild primates' stress responses shift from helpful to harmful could refine general understanding of chronic stress and its health costs. The work on female competition adds to knowledge of how social relationships affect survival and reproduction in close human relatives. The capuchin project also contributes to conservation efforts and builds research capacity at the field laboratory.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Eva Wikberg
University of Texas at San Antonio, TX·Ecology & Evolution
Analyze relationships between pairs of individuals in a human social network that shares space with a non-human primate species, using mixed-method ethnographic data.
Clinton Francis
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, CA·Ecology & Evolution
Test whether noise and light pollution consistently favor a similar set of traits across six songbird species that differ in life history and tolerance of humans.
Timothy Webster
University of Utah, UT·Ecology & Evolution
Track how individuals of a non-human primate species become integrated into social networks from birth to adulthood, using longitudinal observation and social network analysis.
The school
University of Michigan: 124 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 963 research doctorates a year.
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