About

Susan C. Alberts is the Robert F. Durden Distinguished Professor of Biology at Duke University, where she has held the position since 2015. Her research investigates the evolution of social behavior, particularly in mammals, with a focus on the social behavior, demography, life history, and behavioral endocrinology of wild primates. Her main study system is the baboon population in Amboseli, Kenya, which is one of the longest-running studies of wild primates in the world, ongoing since 1971. Alberts' work aims to understand the social structures and interactions that influence animal behavior and health, contributing to broader insights into primate and human social evolution.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Biology
• Genetics
• Demography
• Zoology
• Evolutionary biology
• Mathematics
• Environmental science
• Statistics
• Geography
• Psychology

Selected publications

• Additional file 2 of Admixture influences the genetic architecture of DNA methylation in a wild primate hybrid zone

  Figshare · 2026-02-27

  articleOpen access

  Additional file 2: Supplementary Methods. Fig. S1. Properties of the Amboseli baboon RRBS data set. Fig. S2. Mutations that disrupt the CpG site help explain ancestry-associated methylation levels. Fig. S3. Signal for ancestry effects on DNA methylation in Amboseli. Fig. S4. Differences in DNA methylation between anubis and yellow baboons, sampled outside of the hybrid zone. Fig. S5. Change in allele frequency depends on the unadmixed minor allele frequency. Fig. S6: Enrichment of ancestry-associated methylation by genomic context.

  PublisherDOI

• Longitudinal changes in gut microbiota across reproductive states in wild baboons

  Research Square · 2026-01-27

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Additional file 1 of Admixture influences the genetic architecture of DNA methylation in a wild primate hybrid zone

  Figshare · 2026-02-27

  datasetOpen access

  Additional file 1: Table S1. Amboseli baboons and accompanying metadata. Table S2. CpG sites with ancestry-associated DNA methylation. Table S3. CpG sites that exhibit ancestry-associated DNA methylation, lie in or near genes with ancestry-associated gene expression, and fall within windows with methylation-dependent regulatory activity in mSTARR-seq.

  PublisherDOI

• Additional file 2 of Admixture influences the genetic architecture of DNA methylation in a wild primate hybrid zone

  Figshare · 2026-02-27

  articleOpen access

  Additional file 2: Supplementary Methods. Fig. S1. Properties of the Amboseli baboon RRBS data set. Fig. S2. Mutations that disrupt the CpG site help explain ancestry-associated methylation levels. Fig. S3. Signal for ancestry effects on DNA methylation in Amboseli. Fig. S4. Differences in DNA methylation between anubis and yellow baboons, sampled outside of the hybrid zone. Fig. S5. Change in allele frequency depends on the unadmixed minor allele frequency. Fig. S6: Enrichment of ancestry-associated methylation by genomic context.

  PublisherDOI

• Demographic, behavioral, and ecological data from a long-term field study of wild baboons in Amboseli, Kenya

  Scientific Data · 2026-03-02 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Long-term data sets on individually recognized animals and their environments are critical to understanding animal behavior, evolution, and ecology. However, they are resource- and time-intensive and seldom made publicly available. The Amboseli Baboon Research Project (ABRP) is one of the longest-running studies of a wild mammal population in the world and has collected extensive data on the baboon population of the Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya since 1971. Here, we describe four ABRP data sets newly available to the evolutionary biology, behavioral ecology, and primatology communities: (1) the sizes and demographic compositions of 21 social groups from 1971-2023; (2) the activity budgets of adult females and immatures from 1984-2023; (3) behavioral data on diet for adult females and immatures from 1984-2023; and (4) weather data, including precipitation from 1976-2023 and temperature from 1976-2022. Data are aggregated annually and monthly to enable cross-data set analyses. These data offer a rare longitudinal perspective on behavioral and ecological change in a wild mammal population.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Real-time heart rate in the wild: remote collection of cardiac data in baboons using a low-power Bluetooth and LoRaWAN system

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-04-21

  articleOpen access

  Cardiac rate and rhythm reveal how animals adapt physiologically to day-to-day challenges, with consequences for health and fitness. However, these data remain difficult to collect in wild animals, despite their relevance for individual health and fitness.Here, we present a system for collecting and transmitting long-term, fine-scaled physiological data in wild animals. We implanted Bluetooth-enabled cardiac and physiological monitor devices in three wild adult female baboons in the Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya and paired these devices with collars that enabled remote data downloads over long-range wide area network (LoRaWAN).The system performed well over >10 months, providing the first long-term cardiac data in wild primates. The baboons showed strong circadian patterns in heart rate, heart rate variability, and activity. We also present data on one female who left her social group for unknown reasons; while alone she exhibited higher heart rate variability, lower activity, and evidence of disrupted sleep.In sum, physiologgers paired with low-energy methods of remote data retrieval are powerful tools for investigating physiology in wild animals on timescales that extend over many months, with minimal disruption to their behavior.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Additional file 1 of Admixture influences the genetic architecture of DNA methylation in a wild primate hybrid zone

  Figshare · 2026-02-27

  datasetOpen access

  Additional file 1: Table S1. Amboseli baboons and accompanying metadata. Table S2. CpG sites with ancestry-associated DNA methylation. Table S3. CpG sites that exhibit ancestry-associated DNA methylation, lie in or near genes with ancestry-associated gene expression, and fall within windows with methylation-dependent regulatory activity in mSTARR-seq.

  PublisherDOI

• Author response for "Early-life paternal relationships predict adult female survival in wild baboons"

  2025-05-15

  peer-review
  PublisherDOI

• Reevaluating the relationship between female sociality and infant survival in wild baboons

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-05-13 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Over the past few decades, studies have provided strong evidence that the robust links between the social environment, health, and survival found in humans also extend to nonhuman social animals. A number of these studies emphasize the early life origins of these effects. For example, in several social mammals, more socially engaged mothers have infants with higher rates of survival compared to less socially engaged mothers, suggesting that positive maternal social relationships causally improve offspring survival. Here, we show that the relationship between infant survival and maternal sociality is confounded by previously underappreciated variation in female social behavior linked to changes in reproductive state and the presence of a live infant. Using data from a population of wild baboons living in the Amboseli basin of Kenya-a population where high levels of maternal sociality have previously been linked to improved infant survival-we find that infant- and reproductive state-dependent changes in female social behavior drive a statistically significant relationship between maternal sociality and infant survival. After accounting for these state-dependent changes in social behavior, maternal sociality is no longer positively associated with infant survival in this population. Our results emphasize the importance of considering multiple explanatory pathways-including third-variable effects-when studying the social determinants of health in wild populations.

  PublisherDOI

• Author response for "Testing early life effects frameworks: developmental constraints and adaptive response hypotheses do not explain fertility outcomes in wild female baboons"

  2025-04-22

  peer-review
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R03AG045459

  NIH · $79k · 2015

• Research Network on Animal Models to Understand Social Dimensions of Aging

  NIH · $2.6M · 2020–2030

• Administrative Core

  NIH · $20.8M · 2023

• DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Evolutionary Consequences of Direct and Indirect Contributions to Additive Genetic Variation in Wild Baboons.

  NSF · $21k · 2015–2018

• LTREB: Long-term behavioral and genetic analyses of a wild primate population

  NSF · $450k · 2009–2015

Frequent coauthors

• Jeanne Altmann

  682 shared

• Jenny Tung

  Duke University

  301 shared

• Elizabeth A. Archie

  University of Notre Dame

  283 shared

• Laurence R. Gesquiere

  89 shared

• Mercy Y. Akinyi

  National Museums of Kenya

  75 shared

• Fernando A. Campos

  The University of Texas at San Antonio

  58 shared

• Marie J. E. Charpentier

  Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier

  47 shared

• Emmanuel O. Wango

  University of Nairobi

  44 shared

Education

• PhD, Ecology and Evolution

  University of Chicago

  1992

Awards & honors

• Bass Fellow (2012 - Present)
• International Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2025)