My research applies a multi-disciplinary approach involving field observations, social network analysis, behavioural experiments, and life-history analysis to address questions about the social ethology and ecology of animals.
Funding
|
My work is/has been funded by the European Research Council (ERC Consolidator Grant, FriendOrigins - 864461), the National Institutes on Aging (NIA, R01-060931, R56-07102), the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH, R01-118203, R01-096875), The Leverhulme Trust, the Royal Society, NERC, the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour, the Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), The Leakey Foundation, the Duke Center for Interdisciplinary Decision Sciences, and the International Primatological Society.
|
Current and Recent Research Projects
|
1. Social dynamics and the evolution of cooperation
I am currently exploring the mechanisms that underpin the exchange of behavioural services using highly cooperative rhesus macaques as a model system. This research is funded by a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship and was highlighted in their monthly newsletter. 
2. Did social relationships evolve and, if so, why?
I examine whether social relationships impact upon survival and reproductive output and attempt to determine the mechanisms that underpin the relationship between sociality and fitness. I also explore the extent to which variation in social traits can be explained by genetic and environmental factors and am interested in how we quantify social relationships and what aspects of those relationships are, and are not, important. To do this work, I use extensive behavioural, demographic, and life-history data from long-term field sites. Along with collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, and Duke University, I also apply modern genetic techniques to explore the impact of genomic variation on the expression of social phenotypes. 
Male and female rhesus macaques that are more connected in the grooming, aggression, and proximity networks produce infants that are more likely to survive. Some social network measures were shown to be heritable.
From: Brent et al. 2013 Scientific Reports.
Survival benefits of family network size, from Brent et al. 2017 Proceedings of the Royal Society, B.
I summarize what we currently know (and don't know) about 'friend of a friend' connections
in animal social networks, including their fitness consequences, in a recent review (Brent, 2015, Animal Behaviour)
An association with the stress response indicates that social relationships are important to the maintenance of health and homeostasis and is therefore indicative of the current utility of these social traits. I have explored the relationship between the stress response and sociality in gregarious animals using non-invasive endocrinological techniques. This work was featured in a Time Magazine article by Carl Zimmer.
|
|
Matt Ridley covered my research on the heritability of social network position in the Wall Street Journal.
|
|
3. Social processes and Aging
I establish how social processes change across the lifespan and determine the costs and benefits associated with those changes. I am also working in collaboration with colleagues at UWashington and NYU to establish whether social processes impact health outcomes and the rate of molecular aging.
       Our paper about how leadership and ecological knowledge contributes to the inclusive fitness of menopausal killer whales (Brent et al. 2015 Current Biology) received some terrific media coverage
|
