Physiological Regulation and Paths to Social Status in Chimpanzees

In this dissertation, I leverage longitudinal comparative data from naturalistic chimpanzee populations to examine the evolutionary context for healthy aging and cooperative leadership. First, I use health data from semi-free-ranging chimpanzees living at African sanctuaries (2012-2023) to demonstrate that the effects of diet and exercise that promote healthy aging in humans are shared with chimpanzees. Semi-free-ranging chimpanzees exhibit a slower pace of biological aging compared to sedentary laboratory chimpanzees (Chapter 2). Sanctuary chimpanzees also have healthier inflammatory profiles, with no evidence of chronic inflammaging (Chapter 3). Second, I use hormonal and behavioral data from wild chimpanzees at Kanyawara (2005-2019) to test for two key features of cooperative human leadership. Consistently moderate stress phenotypes do not predict prosocial behavioral strategies (Chapter 4). However, prosociality promotes social network centrality, an index of human status (Chapter 5). Taken together, these studies situate naturalistic chimpanzee populations as tractable models for human biology and behavior.