Susan Perry
University of California, Los Angeles · Anatomy and Cell Biology
Active 1955–2024
About
Susan Perry is involved in research on social learning and food processing in capuchins, focusing on how monkeys acquire skills such as opening Panama fruits and processing Sloanea fruits through social learning. She collaborates with graduate students like Brendan Barrett, whose PhD research is funded by the American Society of Primatologists, NSF graduate fellowship, and the ARCS Foundation Northern California Chapter. Perry also co-monitors food availability and nutritional content of staple foods in capuchin diets, assessing habitat quality and feeding strategies over time, with support from the UCLA Academic Senate. Her research extends to studying coalition formation, communication, and alliance-building among capuchins, which are crucial for reproductive success. She works alongside her graduate students Caitlin De Rango and Kotrina Kajokaite on topics related to primate politics, coalition psychology, and life histories. Additionally, Perry is involved in research on inbreeding avoidance mechanisms, led by UCLA graduate student Irene Godoy, which investigates how male capuchins avoid inbreeding with their daughters and granddaughters, even when co-residing as alpha males. Her work contributes to understanding primate social behavior, reproductive strategies, and the ecological factors influencing these processes.
Research topics
- Biology
- Evolutionary biology
- Mathematics
- Ecology
- Genetics
- Sociology
- Demography
- Computer Science
- Cognitive science
- Psychology
- Zoology
- Anthropology
Selected publications
Reproductive inequality in humans and other mammals
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2023 · 35 citations
- Biology
- Mathematics
To address claims of human exceptionalism, we determine where humans fit within the greater mammalian distribution of reproductive inequality. We show that humans exhibit lower reproductive skew (i.e., inequality in the number of surviving offspring) among males and smaller sex differences in reproductive skew than most other mammals, while nevertheless falling within the mammalian range. Additionally, female reproductive skew is higher in polygynous human populations than in polygynous nonhumans mammals on average. This patterning of skew can be attributed in part to the prevalence of monogamy in humans compared to the predominance of polygyny in nonhuman mammals, to the limited degree of polygyny in the human societies that practice it, and to the importance of unequally held rival resources to women's fitness. The muted reproductive inequality observed in humans appears to be linked to several unusual characteristics of our species-including high levels of cooperation among males, high dependence on unequally held rival resources, complementarities between maternal and paternal investment, as well as social and legal institutions that enforce monogamous norms.
The long lives of primates and the ‘invariant rate of ageing’ hypothesis
Nature Communications · 2021 · 89 citations
- Biology
- Evolutionary biology
- Demography
Is it possible to slow the rate of ageing, or do biological constraints limit its plasticity? We test the 'invariant rate of ageing' hypothesis, which posits that the rate of ageing is relatively fixed within species, with a collection of 39 human and nonhuman primate datasets across seven genera. We first recapitulate, in nonhuman primates, the highly regular relationship between life expectancy and lifespan equality seen in humans. We next demonstrate that variation in the rate of ageing within genera is orders of magnitude smaller than variation in pre-adult and age-independent mortality. Finally, we demonstrate that changes in the rate of ageing, but not other mortality parameters, produce striking, species-atypical changes in mortality patterns. Our results support the invariant rate of ageing hypothesis, implying biological constraints on how much the human rate of ageing can be slowed.
Not by transmission alone: the role of invention in cultural evolution
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2021 · 32 citations
1st authorCorresponding- Sociology
- Computer Science
- Sociology
Innovation-the combination of invention and social learning-can empower species to invade new niches via cultural adaptation. Social learning has typically been regarded as the fundamental driver for the emergence of traditions and thus culture. Consequently, invention has been relatively understudied outside the human lineage-despite being the source of new traditions. This neglect leaves basic questions unanswered: what factors promote the creation of new ideas and practices? What affects their spread or loss? We critically review the existing literature, focusing on four levels of investigation: traits (what sorts of behaviours are easiest to invent?), individuals (what factors make some individuals more likely to be inventors?), ecological contexts (what aspects of the environment make invention or transmission more likely?), and populations (what features of relationships and societies promote the rise and spread of new inventions?). We aim to inspire new research by highlighting theoretical and empirical gaps in the study of innovation, focusing primarily on inventions in non-humans. Understanding the role of invention and innovation in the history of life requires a well-developed theoretical framework (which embraces cognitive processes) and a taxonomically broad, cross-species dataset that explicitly investigates inventions and their transmission. We outline such an agenda here. This article is part of the theme issue 'Foundations of cultural evolution'.
Maternal death and offspring fitness in multiple wild primates
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2020 · 77 citations
- Biology
- Demography
- Zoology
Primate offspring often depend on their mothers well beyond the age of weaning, and offspring that experience maternal death in early life can suffer substantial reductions in fitness across the life span. Here, we leverage data from eight wild primate populations (seven species) to examine two underappreciated pathways linking early maternal death and offspring fitness that are distinct from direct effects of orphaning on offspring survival. First, we show that, for five of the seven species, offspring face reduced survival during the years immediately preceding maternal death, while the mother is still alive. Second, we identify an intergenerational effect of early maternal loss in three species (muriquis, baboons, and blue monkeys), such that early maternal death experienced in one generation leads to reduced offspring survival in the next. Our results have important implications for the evolution of slow life histories in primates, as they suggest that maternal condition and survival are more important for offspring fitness than previously realized.
Recent grants
NSF-NATO POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS
NSF · $39k · 1996–1999
Migration in Wild Capuchin Monkeys
NSF · $410k · 2009–2013
RAPID: Primate stress and survival during a strong El Nino event
NSF · $45k · 2016–2018
NIH · $7.3M · 2000
POWRE: Vocal communication in Cebus Capucinus
NSF · $25k · 1998–2000
Frequent coauthors
- 68 shared
Joseph H. Manson
University of California, Los Angeles
- 37 shared
Olav T. Oftedal
- 37 shared
Michael L. Power
Conservation Biology Institute
- 36 shared
Christine Jérôme
University of Liège
- 36 shared
Melissa R. Price
- 36 shared
Rachel Power
- 36 shared
Jeannette P. Ward
- 36 shared
Andrew J. Petto
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Labs
Education
- 1995
PhD, Anthropology
University of Michigan
- 1989
MA, Anthropology
University of Michigan
- 1987
BA, Anthropology
Washington University
Similar researchers at University of California, Los Angeles
- Resume-aware match score
- Save to shortlist
- AI-drafted outreach
See your match with Susan Perry
PhdFit ranks faculty by your research interests, methods, and publications — grounded in their actual work, not templates.
- Free to start
- No credit card
- 30-second signup