Jenny Tung, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology  

Jenny Tung

I am broadly interested in the evolutionary genetics of wild populations, particularly the relationship between genetic variation, environmental variation, and observable phenotypic variation of adaptive importance. I am especially interested in systems where concordant genetic, environmental, and phenotypic data are available (or can be produced) for the same individuals. These systems offer the opportunity to study how genotype-phenotype relationships may be modified by ecologically important environmental variation. Most of my work focuses on wild baboons, and most of these baboons are members of a long-term population living in the Amboseli Basin of southern Kenya. This population has been under continuous study since 1971 by the Amboseli Baboon Research Project (www.princeton.edu/~baboon). My current projects focus on: 1) Hybridization between anubis baboons (Papio anubis) and yellow baboons (Papio cynocephalus) in Amboseli and elsewhere in southern Kenya (collaboration with Marie Charpentier at CNRS-Montpellier) 2) The evolution of cis-regulatory variation in the Amboseli baboons, including its consequences for in vivo gene expression

Education:
Ph.D., Duke University, 2010

Office Location: 08 Bio Sci, Durham, NC 27708
Office Phone: +1 919 668 4912
Email Address: jenny.tung@duke.edu
Web Page: http://www.duke.edu/~jt5
Additional Web Page: http://www.tung-lab.org

Specialties:
Primate Biology
Genetics and Genomics

Research Categories: primate behavior, hybridization, gene regulation

Research Description:

Recent Publications   (More Publications)   (search)

  1. Johnston, RA; Aracena, KA; Barreiro, LB; Lea, AJ; Tung, J, DNA methylation-environment interactions in the human genome., eLife, vol. 12 (February, 2024), pp. RP89371 [doi]  [abs].
  2. Housman, G; Tung, J, Next-generation primate genomics: New genome assemblies unlock new questions., Cell, vol. 186 no. 25 (December, 2023), pp. 5433-5437 [doi]  [abs].
  3. Levy, EJ; Lee, A; Long'ida Siodi, I; Helmich, EC; McLean, EM; Malone, EJ; Pickard, MJ; Ranjithkumar, R; Tung, J; Archie, EA; Alberts, SC, Early life drought predicts components of adult body size in wild female baboons., American journal of biological anthropology, vol. 182 no. 3 (November, 2023), pp. 357-371 [doi]  [abs].
  4. Lange, EC; Griffin, M; Fogel, AS; Archie, EA; Tung, J; Alberts, SC, Environmental, sex-specific and genetic determinants of infant social behaviour in a wild primate., Proceedings. Biological sciences, vol. 290 no. 2011 (November, 2023), pp. 20231597 [doi]  [abs].
  5. Zipple, MN; Archie, EA; Tung, J; Mututua, RS; Warutere, JK; Siodi, IL; Altmann, J; Alberts, SC, Five Decades of Data Yield No Support for Adaptive Biasing of Offspring Sex Ratio in Wild Baboons (Papio cynocephalus)., The American naturalist, vol. 202 no. 4 (October, 2023), pp. 383-398 [doi]  [abs].