Data and scripts from: Re-evaluating the relationship between female sociality and infant survival in wild baboons

Public

  • Data and code files accompanying the paper "Re-evaluating the relationship between female social bonds and infant survival in wild baboons". Over the past few decades studies have provided strong evidence that the robust links between the social environment, health, and survival found in humans also extend to non-human social animals. A number of these studies emphasize the early life origins of these effects. For example, in several social mammals, more socially engaged mothers have infants with higher rates of survival compared to less socially engaged mothers, suggesting that positive maternal social relationships causally improve offspring survival. Here we show that the relationship between infant survival and maternal sociality is confounded by previously underappreciated variation in female social behavior linked to changes in reproductive state and the presence of a live infant. Using data from a population of wild baboons living in the Amboseli basin of Kenya – a population where high levels of maternal sociality have previously been linked to improved infant survival – we find that infant- and reproductive state-dependent changes in female social behavior drive a statistically significant relationship between maternal sociality and infant survival. After accounting for these state-dependent changes in social behavior, maternal sociality is no longer positively associated with infant survival in this population. Our results emphasize the importance of considering multiple explanatory pathways ”including third-variable effects”when studying the social determinants of health in natural populations. ... [Read More]

Total Size
12 files (69.2 MB)
Data Citation
  • Creighton, M. J. A., Lerch, B. A., Lange, E. C., Silk, J. B., Tung, J., Archie, E. A., & Alberts, S. C.(2025). Data and scripts from: Re-evaluating the relationship between female sociality and infant survival in wild baboons. Duke Research Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.7924/r46d63h7p.
DOI
  • 10.7924/r46d63h7p
Publication Date
ARK
  • ark:/87924/r46d63h7p
Location
  • Amboseli, Nairobi County, Kenya
Type
Funding Agency
  • National Institutes of Health (NIH)
  • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Grant Number
  • NSERC PGSD3 - 577867 - 2023
  • NIH R01AG071684
  • NIH R01AG53330
  • NIH R01AG075914
  • NIH R61AG078470
  • NIH R01AG053308
Title
  • Data and scripts from: Re-evaluating the relationship between female sociality and infant survival in wild baboons
This Dataset
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