Science & Technology - Posted by Karl Bates-Duke on Thursday,
January 10, 2013 11:28 - 1 Comment Monkey ‘dorks’ lack friends
of friends DUKE (US) — For rhesus macaque monkeys, being
“popular” seems to run in the family. Two years of observation
on the social interactions of a troop of free-ranging monkeys
has found signs of natural selection affecting the behavior of
the descendants. That ability also wins them more reproductive
success. “If you are a more social monkey, then you’re going to
have greater reproductive success, meaning your babies are more
likely to survive their first year,” says Lauren Brent, post-
doctoral research fellow at Duke University who led the study.
“Natural selection appears to be favoring pro-social behavior.”
Straight from the Source The analysis, which appears Wednesday
in Nature Scientific Reports, combined sophisticated social
network maps with 75 years of pedigree data and some genetic
analysis. The monkeys are a free-ranging population of macaques
descended from a 1938 relea