Primate Life History Database

Background on the Working Group

The Primate Life History Database is a unique compilation of full life-course information from seven wild populations that have been studied for at least 30 years. The database contains standardized records for thousands of individual primates that have been followed from birth to death. These primate populations are some of the best-studied wild primates on earth. Formed over the course of several meetings from 2005 to 2007, the original core members of the PLHD include co-organizers Susan Alberts and Karen Strier, along with Jeanne Altmann, Diane Brockman, Anne Bronikowski, Marina Cords, Linda Fedigan, Bill Morris, Anne Pusey, Tara Stoinski. Following Diane’s retirement, Rich Lawler joined the working group in 2017.

My involvement with the PLHD working group began in 2015, when I was brought in to investigate the question of how “vital rates”—that is, birth rates and death rates—are affected by climate variability. This culminated in our 2017 paper:

Campos et al. (2017) Global Change Biology

As a post-doc in Susan Alberts’ lab at Duke, I continued to work on several unresolved questions about life history evolution using this exceptionally valuable resource.