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NEWS
The second meeting of the Northeastern Evolutionary
Primatologists
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INTRODUCTION
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY), hosted the sec-
ond meeting of the Northeastern Evolutionary Primatologists (NEEP)
on November 4
th
and 5
th
, 2016, in New York City. The conference was
organized by Andrea Baden (Hunter College, CUNY), Megan Petersdorf
(New York University, NYU), Rachel Jacobs (George Washington Uni-
versity, GWU), Andreas Koenig (Stony Brook), and Carola Borries
(Stony Brook). In all, 101 students and 40 faculty members were in
attendance, representing over 30 research institutions. Student partici-
pation was excellent and the meeting facilitated and encouraged net-
working among undergraduate and graduate students in the
northeastern area.
The conference kicked off with a keynote address by Christopher
Schmitt from the Department of Anthropology at Boston University.
Schmitt gave an overview of his career, through his dissertation, post-
doctoral, and assistant professorship experiences investigating growth
and development in primates. Schmitt’s dissertation work challenged
the life-history hypothesis of delayed maturation as a result of juvenile
foraging incompetence in two species of sympatric atelines. After
receiving his PhD, Schmitt’s research focus shifted to a more medically
oriented area of research: the genomics of obesity during development.
During his postdoctoral appointment at the International Vervet
Research Consortium, Schmitt determined that the development of
obesity in vervet monkeys occurs through bimaturism. Furthermore,
obesity in male offspring, but not female offspring, is linked to maternal
diet while in utero. Finally, at the University of California, Berkeley,
Schmitt applied his expertise in growth and development to the fossil
record, using quantitative genetic methods to trace the evolution of
catarrhine tooth morphology. Schmitt’s presentation, which was geared
toward student attendees, not only highlighted his research, but
encouraged multidisciplinary research and offered insight into personal
success within academia.
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PODIUM PRESENTATIONS
The following day of the conference consisted of three sessions of
podium presentations, then an evening poster session. The first session
of podium presentations, focused on diet, nutrition, and seed dispersal,
began with a presentation by Andrea DiGiorgio (Boston University),
who discussed the importance of combining geometric models with
optimal foraging models to better understand orangutan feeding
behavior. Andrea Blackburn (Boston University) discussed the role of
Bornean orangutans as effective seed dispersers and their importance
in fruit-tree recruitment. Mareesa Takahashi (Columbia) reported that
blue monkeys incorporate non-natural foods into their diet to fulfill
nutritional requirements. Mareike Janiak (Rutgers) presented her explo-
ration of possible amino acid convergence in insectivorous New World
monkeys and insectivorous bats. Findings presented by Camille Stew-
art (Hunter College, CUNY) indicated that foods selected by forest
baboons contain less starch than those selected by savanna baboons,
suggesting that early hominins did not eat starchy foods until they
moved into open habitats. Caley Johnson (The Graduate Center,
CUNY), the recipient of this year’s award for best student talk, dis-
cussed operationalization of the macronutrient niche of olive baboons
using the right-angled mixture triangle.
The second session, which focused on social strategies and vocal-
izations, began with a presentation by Nicole Thompson (Columbia),
who used fecal glucocorticoid metabolites (FGCMs) to investigate the
relationship between affiliative ties and allostatic load in juvenile blue
monkeys. Surprisingly, she found that there was a positive relationship
between time spent grooming and higher baseline FGCMs. Shahrina
Chowdury (The Graduate Center, CUNY) reported that, among two
troops of chacma baboons with different ranging patterns, there was a
positive relationship between fecal glucocorticoid (GC) levels and time
spent in suburban areas, while there was a negative relationship
between GC levels and time spent in the forest. Amy Scott (Boston
University) investigated how infanticide may shape the reproductive
strategies of female orangutans, focusing on spatial proximity between
a mother and her dependent offspring and between males and females.
Alexis Amann (The Graduate Center, CUNY) investigated reproductive
strategies among female hamadrayas baboons and reported that
females may terminate pregnancies as a counterstrategy to male take-
overs. Holly Fuong (Columbia) quantitatively assessed variation in blue
monkey grunt vocalizations. She found no evidence that calls differed
by context and limited evidence that they differed by individual callers
or matrilines.
The third and final session of podium presentations focused on
speciation and morphology. Amanda Fuchs (Hunter College, CUNY)
presented the first of the speciation talks. She used ecological-niche
modeling to investigate niche differentiation in Papio species. She
found no significant correlation between niche overlap and estimated
divergence dates in Papio species, suggesting parapatric speciation. Jen
Tinsman (Columbia, American Museum of Natural History) projected
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V
C2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/evan Evolutionary Anthropology. 2017;26:42–43.
Received: 23 March 2017
|
DOI: 10.1002/evan.21529
lemur ecological niches onto predicted refugia during the last glacial
maximum to determine if ecological or allopatric speciation occurred
under past climate conditions. Alejandro Laserna (Queens College,
CUNY) investigated the relationship between several behavioral varia-
bles and diversification rates, finding that allomothering and mating
systems affected diversification rates, though dispersal rates did not.
Three morphology-focused presentations followed the speciation talks.
Gina Agostini (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) presented find-
ings suggesting that multiple factors, including allometry and anatomi-
cal location, influence the level of phylogenetic signal in primate traits.
Jenny Eyre (NYU) investigated the relationship between hip width,
measured as bi-iliac breadth, and birth canal size, finding that although
bi-iliac breadth was correlated with the size of the birth canal at the
pelvic inlet, there was no correlation between bi-iliac breadth and the
size of the pelvic outlet. The session concluded with a presentation by
Megan Petersdorf (NYU), who presented results demonstrating that
Kinda baboons are less sexually dimorphic in body mass and canine
size, but have relatively larger testes than do other baboons, indicating
relatively weak direct contest competition but stronger sperm competi-
tion compared with other baboon species.
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POSTER SESSION
The poster session was held following the podium presentations in the
Hunter Faculty Lounge, which boasts spectacular views of the New
York City skyline. Coloration and color vision, methods, and cranioden-
tal morphology were popular poster topics. In color research, Andrew
Van Horn (GWU) showed that male rhesus macaque coat coloration
varies by social style. Rachel Jacobs (GWU) presented findings on novel
allelic variation related to color vision in four species of indriids. In
methods, Melanie Fenton (Rutgers) presented results that highlighted
the importance of validating photogrammetric methods for collecting
body-size measurements in the field. Jane Widness (Yale) called atten-
tion to the benefits of camera traps for research in field primatology
and Raymond Vagell (Hunter College, CUNY) presented a novel tech-
nique to explore color vision in lemurs called subject-mediated auto-
matic remote testing apparatus (SMARTA). In craniodental morphology,
Kathleen Rust (Hunter College) presented findings on a new siviladapid
fossil from India and Chris Gilbert (Hunter College) showed that fossil
euprimates consistently have higher encephalization quotients than do
plesiadapiforms. Lu Gao (Columbia) was awarded the prize for best stu-
dent poster for her work on adult male blue monkey influxes. She
found that the relationship between the number of males and the num-
ber of sexually active females in blue monkey groups was not as strong
as expected, indicating that the number of estrus females is not neces-
sarily the primary variable influencing the number of males in groups of
these monkeys.
Overall, the meeting provided numerous opportunities for student
participation. Students were involved in many aspects of the meeting,
from volunteering with set-up to presenting their research. They found
it very beneficial to interact with faculty and students from other local
institutions in an environment focused on student research.
This second meeting of the Northeastern Evolutionary Primatolo-
gists Group was supported by Hunter College, CUNY (School of Arts
and Sciences; Department of Anthropology) and NYCEP (The New
York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology). Student prizes for
podium and poster presentations were generously provided by Wiley
Publishing and Springer Publishing. Recipients of these awards also
received cash prizes. Meeting participants also voted that a new NEEP
logo designed by Elaine Guevara (GWU) be used at the next NEEP
meeting, currently planned for Fall 2017. Visit neevolprimatol.org for
the full conference program, photographs from the weekend, and
details on future NEEP meetings.
Clare M. Kimock
1,2
, Katarina D. Evans
2,3
, Rachel M. Petersen
1,2
1
Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York,
NY 10003
2
New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology
3
Department of Anthropology, The Graduate Center, City University of
New York, New York, NY 10016
Correspondence
Clare M. Kimock, Department of Anthropology, New York University,
New York, NY 10003, New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology
The second meeting of the NortheasternEvolutionary Primatologists, Nov 4th and 5th,2016[Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
NEWS
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