Die young, live fast: is accelerated reproduction an adaptive response to early life adversity in wild baboons?
Wednesday, April 21st at 12pm EDT/18:00 CEST. Sign up here for the meeting link.
Join us for a conversation with Elizabeth Archie, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, and Chelsea Weibel, PhD Student at the University of Notre Dame. If an individual can anticipate an early death, should they also “live fast”? Fast reproduction is often proposed to be an adaptive response to harsh conditions in early life because early adversity predicts shorter lifespans. Individuals who speed up reproduction after experiencing early adversity might therefore have higher fitness than those who do not. Using long-term data on natural population of baboons in Amboseli, Kenya, we tested if fast reproduction offers lifetime fitness advantages to females. Contrary to several influential hypotheses, females who experienced early adversity did not improve their fitness if they sped up reproduction. Our results raise doubts that accelerated reproduction is an adaptive response to early adversity in long lived, slow-reproducing species.Sign up here for the meeting link.
Call for graduate student presenters! We’re excited to announce that we will be highlighting some of the exciting evolutionary medicine research done by late-stage graduate students at an upcoming Club EvMed! This is a fantastic opportunity to present your work virtually to the global evolutionary medicine community, get feedback, and initiate discussions and new connections.
Consider nominating yourself or someone else using this form. All nominations are due by Wednesday, May 5th for consideration. Three graduate students will be selected to present at an event tentatively scheduled for Thursday, June 3rd.
Looking forward to your submissions! Brought to you by:
The $5000 Gilbert S. Omenn Prize is awarded by the International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health for the best article published in the previous calendar year on a topic related to evolution in the context of medicine and public health. Nominations for articles published in 2020, including self-nominations, are welcome until April 30, 2021. Caleb Finch chairs the prize jury.
The International Society for Evolution, Medicine & Public Health invites nominations for the Omenn Prize of $5000 for the best article published in the previous calendar year in any scientific journal on a topic related to evolution in the context of medicine and public health.
The prize, provided by the generosity of Gilbert S. Omenn, will be awarded to the first author of the winning article. The Committee, chaired this year by Caleb Finch, may elect to recognize more than one article. Authors are encouraged to nominate their own articles, but nominations of articles by others are also welcome.Directions for NominationsPlease submit your nomination using this brief form. The form requests a reference for the nominated article, along with a brief statement in support of your nomination.
Peer-reviewed articles with a publication date of 2020 that use evolutionary principles to advance understanding of a disease or disease process are eligible. The prize committee will give priority to articles with implications for human health, but many basic science or theoretical articles have such implications.
The prize is made possible by a generous donation by Gilbert Omenn, M.D., PhD. Director of the Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics at the University of Michigan where he is a Professor of Internal Medicine, Human Genetics, and Public Health. Dr. Omenn served as Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs as Chief Executive Officer of the University of Michigan Health System from 1997-2002. He is a past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West became psychologically peculiar and particularly prosperous
Thursday, April 1st at 12pm EDT/18:00 CEST
Join us for a conversation with Joe Henrich, Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. Over the last few decades, a growing body of research has revealed not only substantial global variation along several important psychological dimensions, but also that people from societies that are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) are particularly unusual, often anchoring the ends of global psychological distributions. To explain these patterns, I’ll first show how the most fundamental human institutions—those governing marriage and the family—influence our motivations, perceptions, intuitions and emotions. Then, to explain the peculiar trajectory of European societies over the last two millennium, I lay out how one particular branch of Christianity systematically dismantled the intensive kin-based institutions in much of Latin Christendom, thereby altering people’s psychology and opening the door to the proliferation of new institutional forms, including voluntary associations (charter towns, universities and guilds), impersonal markets, individualistic religions and representative governments. In light of these findings, I close by arguing that the anthropological, psychological and economic sciences should transform into a unified evolutionary approach that considers not only how human nature influences our behavior and societies but also how the resulting institutions, technologies and languages subsequently shape our minds.
After the talk, perspectives on how the research applies in a clinical setting will be presented by physician Neal Baer, Lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard. Attendees are encouraged to read Schulz et al. 2019, “The Church, intensive kinship, and global psychological variation.” Sign up here for the meeting link.
Causes and consequences of fear of childbirth
Monday, April 5th at 12pm EDT/18:00 CEST
Join us for a conversation with Zaneta Thayer, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth College. Childbirth is an essential component of reproduction. And yet, many individuals experience fear of childbirth (FOC), defined as anxiety about birth that impairs an individual’s daily functioning and wellbeing. Mild to moderate FOC has been previously described as a potential adaptation for humans to seek assistance during labor and delivery. However, FOC exists on a spectrum, and individuals with high FOC are known to be more likely to request cesarean and other forms of medical intervention in order to avoid pain and maintain a sense of control. In this talk, I will expand on what is known about the causes of FOC, as well as presently underappreciated impacts of FOC on maternal and child health across the perinatal period. Using data collected from pregnant persons living in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic, I will discuss how pandemic-related restrictions on birth environments have amplified FOC and associations between FOC and gestation length, postpartum depression, and breastfeeding outcomes. This work suggests that promoting prenatal care and birth environments that facilitate patient-provider trust, continuous labor support, and maternal self-efficacy could reduce FOC. Sign up here for the meeting link.
Die young, live fast: is accelerated reproduction an adaptive response to early life adversity in wild baboons?
Wednesday, April 21st at 12pm EDT/18:00 CEST
Join us for a conversation with Elizabeth Archie, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, and Chelsea Weibel, PhD Student at the University of Notre Dame. If an individual can anticipate an early death, should they also “live fast”? Fast reproduction is often proposed to be an adaptive response to harsh conditions in early life because early adversity predicts shorter lifespans. Individuals who speed up reproduction after experiencing early adversity might therefore have higher fitness than those who do not. Using long-term data on natural population of baboons in Amboseli, Kenya, we tested if fast reproduction offers lifetime fitness advantages to females. Contrary to several influential hypotheses, females who experienced early adversity did not improve their fitness if they sped up reproduction. Our results raise doubts that accelerated reproduction is an adaptive response to early adversity in long lived, slow-reproducing species. Sign up here for the meeting link.
Postdoc Spotlight
Thursday, April 29th at 12pm EDT/18:00 CEST
We are accepting nominations through Wednesday, March 31st. If you would like to nominate yourself or someone else to present a 12-minute talk at Club EvMed, please fill out this form.
Nominations are now open for the Omenn Prize; Deadline April 30
The $5000 Gilbert S. Omenn Prize is awarded each year by The International Society for Evolution, Medicine & Public Health for the the best article published in the previous calendar year in any scientific journal on a topic related to evolution in the context of medicine and public health. Please submit your nomination, self-nominations are welcome.
The prize, provided by the generosity of Gilbert S. Omenn, will be awarded to the first author of the winning article. The Committee may elect to recognize more than one article. This year’s prize committee includes Caleb Finch (chair), Martin Brüne, Joe Graves, Jochim Kurtz, Chris Kuzawa, Anne Stone, and Carol Worthman.
A special open access issue on the developmental origins of disease edited by Bram Kuijper, Mark A. Hanson, Emma I. K. Vitikainen, Harry H. Marshall, Susan E. Ozanne and Michael A. Cant has just been published. The 17 articles are essential reading for all interested in evolutionary medicine.
