Timothy Webster
University of Utah, UT·Ecology & Evolution
How an animal fits into its social group affects its health, survival and how many offspring it leaves. This is true in humans and in other primates.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Psychology
Social Science
- Topics
social integration
social network analysis
non-human primates
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- 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.
- Test how early rearing environments, such as single versus communal nesting and the presence and amount of allomaternal (non-mother) care, shape the formation of social bonds.
- Compare littermate siblings raised in the same environment with non-siblings to separate the effects of shared rearing on social integration.
- Evaluate how mothers' social networks and cooperative breeding influence the development and evolution of social integration across the lifespan.
More about the research
Scientists call this social integration: how connected an individual is to others and where it sits in the group's social network. Yet how primates come to be socially integrated as they grow up is poorly understood. The answer could shed light on how early life shapes social lives, and on how cooperative behaviors evolved.
Why it matters
Because social integration is linked to health, survival and reproduction in humans and other primates, this basic research adds understanding of how early rearing and shared infant care shape social lives over a lifetime. It could eventually inform ideas about how cooperative childcare shaped primate, and human, social evolution.
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.
Jacinta Beehner
University of Michigan, MI·Ecology & Evolution
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.
Alexandra Rosati
University of Michigan, MI·Psychology·Early-career
Identify unique features of human cognitive control by comparing humans with chimpanzees on a new battery of tasks measuring working memory, inhibition, updating, performance monitoring and planning.
The school
University of Utah: 58 labs on PI Pages, $789M a year on research, 366 research doctorates a year.
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