Fernando Campos

Fernando Campos

Assistant Professor of Anthropology

University of Texas at San Antonio

Understanding and predicting the effects climate change, habitat loss, and other human disturbances on natural populations is one of the grand challenges for today’s natural scientists.

My research is in the broad area of behavioral responses to changing environments, both ecological and social. We still do not fully understand the limits of behavioral flexibility or whether adaptive responses will be sufficient to keep pace with rapidly changing environmental conditions. These gaps in our understanding motivate the goals of my research: to shed light on the limits, consequences, and evolutionary roots of flexible responses to environments that change in time or space.

I study natural primate populations, including white-faced capuchins in Costa Rica’s Área de Conservación Guanacaste and savannah baboons in the Amboseli ecosystem of East Africa. I also do comparative research with the Primate Life History Database.

Interests

  • Behavioral ecology
  • Life histories
  • Aging
  • Biodemography
  • Global change
  • Primates

Education

  • PhD in Biological Anthropology, 2014

    University of Calgary

  • MA in Biological Anthropology, 2008

    University of Calgary

  • BSc in Biology, 2002

    California Institute of Technology

Other Recent Publications

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Thyroid Hormone Concentrations in Female Baboons: Metabolic Consequences of Living in a Highly Seasonal Environment

How female mammals adapt metabolically in response to environmental variation remains understudied in the wild, because direct measures …

Black-and-White Pelage as Visually Protective Coloration in Colobus Monkeys

Conspicuous coloration is often seen as the evolutionary consequence of either sexual selection or warning predators visually about …

A Causal Mediation Model for Longitudinal Mediators and Survival Outcomes with an Application to Animal Behavior

In animal behavior studies, a common goal is to investigate the causal pathways between an exposure and outcome, and a mediator that …

Factors Influencing Terrestriality in Primates of the Americas and Madagascar

Selected Projects

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Aging

How do health and behavior vary over the life course?

Foraging and nutritional ecology

How and why animals select their foods.

Population Dynamics

Tracking long-term changes in primate populations.

Climate variability and vital rates

How do climate fluctuations affect survival and fertility?

Primate Life History Database

An exceptional archive of primate life history data.

Early Life Adversity

To what extent can primates overcome a bad start in life?

Environmental Stressors

Responses to challenging climates and landscapes.

Movement Ecology

Understanding the drivers of animal space use.

Social Bonds

Are life outcomes affected by differences in social support?

Predation risk

Navigating a landscape of fear.

Dispersal and kinship

Differential access to kin as a driver of dispersal decisions.

Conservation Priorities

Conservation guidance for critically endangered primates.

Principal Investigator

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Fernando Campos

Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Behavioral ecology, Life histories, Aging, Biodemography, Global change, Primates

Graduate Students

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Kaylie McNeil

PhD Student

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Jenna Owens

PhD Student

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Tara Brown

MA Student

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Peyton Schmidli

MA Student

Contact

  • fernando.campos@utsa.edu
  • One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249-1644
  • Office 4.03.20 on the fourth floor of the McKinney Humanities building