Normally, the average life expectancy of baboons ( Papio cynocephalus ) exceeds 20 years. However, the difficulties of a difficult childhood can significantly shorten your options for a long life, as seen in a study carried out by scientists at Duke University (USA), who recorded daily during thirty years (from 1983 to 2013) the adventures of 196 females of this species who lived in freedom next to the Amboseli National Park, in southern Kenya. The results revealed that something similar happens to humans. Not surprisingly, we share 94% of DNA: a difficult childhood affects health during adulthood and influences premature death. For example, two of the individuals studied, female baboons Puma and Mystery, who had been born in times of drought and raised by mothers of low social rank, died young. Puma was killed by a leopard when she was seven years old and Mystery disappeared at 14, leaving behind a calf that died shortly after.
It is true that baboons are not subjected to excess alcohol, drugs or diabetes , as many people with troubled childhoods are, but they suffer long-term negative effects that reduce their life expectancy by almost half. According to the study, published in Nature Communications , “early adversity can affect survival over time,” says Jenny Tung, co-author of the work. Drought, overcrowding as a result of competition between increasing numbers of individuals within the group , loss of the mother, disease and predation make life difficult for these wild primates in Kenya. Research results revealed that more than 75% of the females in the study responded to at least one of these factors, and 15% to three or more. ” The most vulnerable individuals were the females who lost their mothers before the age of four, or whose siblings were born before they were weaned,” say the researchers, who emphasize that mothers are the primary social resource for their daughters when it comes to foraging for food, even after they have become independent.
The most privileged young females who did not suffer misfortunes or only one of them at most lived to the age of twenty or so, while those who suffered three or more problems died on average by the age of nine. In addition, these unfortunate females not only lost more than ten years of their adult life, but were also more isolated from the group and had young that survived less. In sum, it appears that monkeys that form and maintain supportive social relationships as they grow older are more likely to survive and thrive.
