| Publications [#45467] of Meredith L Bastian
search PubMed.Book Sections/Chapters
- van Schaik, CP, Barrickman, N, Bastian, ML, Krakauer, EB, van Noordwijk, MA, Primate life history and the role of brains,
in The Evolution of Human Life History, edited by K. Hawkes, R. Paine
(2006),
pp. 127-154, SAR Press, Santa Fe, NM
(last updated on 2007/02/19)
Abstract: Primate life histories are among the slowest of all
mammals, and those of great apes are the slowest among
primates. Because humans show a further slowing down
of some aspects of their life history, study of primate life
histories is pertinent to the understanding of human life
history. Slow life history affects behavior both directly and
indirectly, by affecting the relative duration of
components of the immature period. Among primates,
slow life histories are characterized by a disproportional
shortening of the relative duration of gestation, leading to
increased vulnerability to infanticide by males. These
direct and indirect effects on behavior may have selected
for cognitively rich behavioral solutions. We also draw
attention to the increasingly well-documented correlation
between slow life histories and large brain size. While
demographic models have been fairly successful in
explaining life history variation across taxa, they ignore
this correlation, which may explain the reduced growth
and reproduction of some lineages. We explore several
hypotheses developed to explain the correlation between
brain size and life history, and suggest that these ideas
can be integrated into a single framework. On the one
hand, the development of larger adult brains inevitably
imposes a developmental cost on the organism, usually in
terms of a delay in maturity, which must be offset by
fitness benefits, usually improved adult survival, and thus
longer reproductive life. On the other hand, in species
with slower life history selection often favors larger brain
size. We examine the relationship between this approach
and the main competing models to explain the evolution
of human life histories (the Grandmother and the
Embodied Capital hypotheses).
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