About
Jenny Tung is a researcher whose work focuses on the social behavior, reproductive strategies, and health outcomes of wild animals, particularly primates. Her research emphasizes understanding the complex relationships between social environment, health, and survival, with a specific focus on female sociality and its effects on offspring survival. Her contributions include reevaluating the links between maternal social behavior and infant survival, demonstrating that these relationships are influenced by reproductive state and other third-variable effects. Her work highlights the importance of considering multiple explanatory pathways when studying the social determinants of health in wild populations.
Research topics
- Biology
- Ecology
- Genetics
- Evolutionary biology
- Demography
- Zoology
- Psychology
- Mathematics
Selected publications
High social status males experience accelerated epigenetic aging in wild baboons
eLife · 2021 · 163 citations
Senior authorCorresponding- Biology
- Demography
- Evolutionary biology
Aging, for virtually all life, is inescapable. However, within populations, biological aging rates vary. Understanding sources of variation in this process is central to understanding the biodemography of natural populations. We constructed a DNA methylation-based age predictor for an intensively studied wild baboon population in Kenya. Consistent with findings in humans, the resulting 'epigenetic clock' closely tracks chronological age, but individuals are predicted to be somewhat older or younger than their known ages. Surprisingly, these deviations are not explained by the strongest predictors of lifespan in this population, early adversity and social integration. Instead, they are best predicted by male dominance rank: high-ranking males are predicted to be older than their true ages, and epigenetic age tracks changes in rank over time. Our results argue that achieving high rank for male baboons - the best predictor of reproductive success - imposes costs consistent with a 'live fast, die young' life-history strategy.
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.
Gut microbiome heritability is nearly universal but environmentally contingent
Science · 2021 · 268 citations
- Biology
- Zoology
- Ecology
Relatives have more similar gut microbiomes than nonrelatives, but the degree to which this similarity results from shared genotypes versus shared environments has been controversial. Here, we leveraged 16,234 gut microbiome profiles, collected over 14 years from 585 wild baboons, to reveal that host genetic effects on the gut microbiome are nearly universal. Controlling for diet, age, and socioecological variation, 97% of microbiome phenotypes were significantly heritable, including several reported as heritable in humans. Heritability was typically low (mean = 0.068) but was systematically greater in the dry season, with low diet diversity, and in older hosts. We show that longitudinal profiles and large sample sizes are crucial to quantifying microbiome heritability, and indicate scope for selection on microbiome characteristics as a host phenotype.
Social determinants of health and survival in humans and other animals
Science · 2020 · 679 citations
Senior authorCorresponding- Biology
- Psychology
- Ecology
The social environment, both in early life and adulthood, is one of the strongest predictors of morbidity and mortality risk in humans. Evidence from long-term studies of other social mammals indicates that this relationship is similar across many species. In addition, experimental studies show that social interactions can causally alter animal physiology, disease risk, and life span itself. These findings highlight the importance of the social environment to health and mortality as well as Darwinian fitness-outcomes of interest to social scientists and biologists alike. They thus emphasize the utility of cross-species analysis for understanding the predictors of, and mechanisms underlying, social gradients in health.
Recent grants
NIH · $79k · 2015
NIH · $7.9M · 2009–2027
Research Network on Animal Models to Understand Social Dimensions of Aging
NIH · $2.6M · 2020–2030
NSF · $32k · 2020–2023
EAGER: New Methods for Genomic Analysis of Noninvasive Samples
NSF · $293k · 2014–2017
Frequent coauthors
- 301 shared
Susan C. Alberts
Duke University
- 229 shared
Elizabeth A. Archie
University of Notre Dame
- 108 shared
Jeanne Altmann
- 101 shared
Luis B. Barreiro
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sainte-Justine
- 93 shared
Amanda J. Lea
Vanderbilt University
- 79 shared
Sayan Mukherjee
- 79 shared
Rachel A. Johnston
Duke University
- 67 shared
Mercy Y. Akinyi
National Museums of Kenya
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