Social inequality

Relationship Between Social Status and Wound-Healing in Wild Baboons

Findings show it's best to be "top baboon"

An adult male baboon rests on a tree near Amboseli National Park, Kenya. Credit and Larger Version

May 21, 2012

Turns out it's not bad being top dog, or in this case, top baboon.

Results of a study by University of Notre Dame biologist Beth Archie and colleagues from Princeton University and Duke University finds that male baboons that have a high rank within their society recover more quickly from injuries, and are less likely to become ill than other males.

The finding is somewhat surprising, given that top-ranked males also experience high stress, which should suppress immune responses.

Archie, Jeanne Altman of Princeton and Susan Roberts of Duke examined health records from the Amboseli Baboon Research Project in Kenya. They published their results in this week's issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences./.../