Dr. Christine Drea – Mechanisms of female dominance (hyenas, lemurs, meerkats)
Release Date: 12/04/2024
Dr. Brian Villmoare – Using teeth to help fill in the blanks of human evolution
AnthroBiology Podcast
Dr. Brian Villmoare of the University of Nevada - Las Vegas shares how his team found teeth in Ethiopia and what those teeth might mean in terms of who was around when in the evolutionary record. Recommendations Villmoare, B., Delezene, L.K., Rector, A.L. et al. . Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09390-4 Kalb, J. (2013). . Copernicus. Wood, B. (2019). . Oxford University Press. [<- This is what I was talking about when I mentioned an intro to human evolution from Cambridge.] + Jablonka, E. & Lamb, M.J. (2014). . Bradford Book. ...
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Keri Porter – What can head trauma tell us about violence in an emerging Bronze Age city? Plus: How to apply for grad school
AnthroBiology Podcast
Keri Porter, a PhD candidate at Notre Dame University, joins the show to discuss their research on patterns of violence in a Bronze Age urban center in the Southern Levant. They focus on cranial trauma and what it can reveal about humans attempting to live together along with what it might reveal about who suffers violence. They also share some excellent recommendations for how to think about grad school, whether or not to go, and tips for applying. Recommendations Martin, D.L., Harrod, R.P., & Pérez, V.R. (Eds.) (2013). . University Press of Florida. Regev J, De Miroschedji P,...
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Dr. Maria Nieves-Colón and Jaime Zolik, MA – Working with Ancient DNA and descendent communities in Peru
AnthroBiology Podcast
Dr. Maria Nieves-Cólon and Jamie Zolik join the show to discuss their ancient DNA research in San Luis de Cañete and what it can reveal about the historical population of the town specifically and the African diaspora in South America generally. They share some of the exciting ways they've forged a partnership with the community in order to carry out the work as ethically as possible. Recommendations Nieves-Colón MA, Ulrich EC, Chen L, Torres Colón GA, Rivera Clemente M, Corporación Piñones se Integra (COPI), Benn Torres J. . American Journal of Biological...
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Dr. Eric Shattuck – How do humans act when we get sick and why?
AnthroBiology Podcast
Dr. Eric Shattuck of Florida State University joins the show to discuss his research on sickness behavior. He wants to know how humans tend to act when they get sick and why they act that way. Recommendations Shattuck, E.C. and Muehlenbein, M.P. (2015), . Am. J. Phys. Anthropol., 157: 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.22698 Shattuck, EC. (2021). . Brain Behav Immun Health. 18:100367. doi: 10.1016/j.bbih.2021.100367. PMID: 34761241; PMCID: PMC8566934. Stockmaier S, Stroeymeyt N, Shattuck EC, Hawley DM, Meyers LA, Bolnick DI. . Science. 2021 Mar 5;371(6533):eabc8881....
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Dr. Erin Blankenship-Sefczek – How does developmental stress affect dental morphology?
AnthroBiology Podcast
Summary Dr. Erin Blankenship-Sefczek of Creighton University joins the show to discuss her research examining the connection between developmental stress and accessory cusps in teeth. Her work focuses on the placement and appearance of extra cusps that occur with greater frequency among individuals who have suffered stress during key developmental periods in their lives. Recommendations Blankenship-Sefczek EC, Goodman AH, Hubbe M, Hunter JP, Guatelli-Steinberg D (2024) . PLOS ONE 19(6): e0305123. Bailey SE, Hublin J-J. [links to pdf of chapter] In:...
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Dr. Samantha Yaussy - What can frailty in skeletons from medieval London teach us about health?
AnthroBiology Podcast
Dr. Samantha Yaussy of James Madison University joins the show to discuss her research on the how sex, socioeconomic status, and developmental stress and the intersectionality therein might interact to affect health outcomes in the past via the lens of frailty in skeletal remains primarily from medieval London. In this episode, we talked about the skeletal markers of frailty in human remains, understanding bias in research and samples, and intersectionality. As part of this, Dr. Yaussy highlighted the morbidity-mortality paradox -- women in modern contexts typically have worse health but...
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Dr. Habiba Chirchir - Why did humans evolve to have less robust skeletons?
AnthroBiology Podcast
Dr. Habiba Chirchir of the Ohio State University joins the show to discuss her research into the skeletal gracilization of modern humans. She's trying to understand when and why our skeletons became less robust, and whether self-domestication may have played a role. ------------------ Note: Apparently I got confused with . Both geneticists worked in the Soviet Union, but Dr. Belyayev wasn't persecuted to the same extent as Vavilov. Vavilov, who based his work on Mendelian genetics, ultimately died in prison for daring to go against Stalin's favored genetic model created by and based...
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Dr. David Orton – Rats in Europe and Zooarchaeology
AnthroBiology Podcast
Dr. David Orton of the University of York joins the show to discuss how he uses zooarchaeology (the study of animal remains in archaeological contexts) to understand the how rat and human populations interacted and affected each other over time in Europe. He gets into the spread of rats, the plague, using ancient DNA and isotopic analysis to analyze rats, and what rats can tell us about historic events. Books, articles, and media mentioned in this episode + helpful sites and articles: Eric Guiry et al., . Scientific Advancements. 10, eadm6755(2024). DOI: Yu, H., Jamieson, A.,...
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Dr. Henry Erlich - Genetic Reconstruction of the Past
AnthroBiology Podcast
Dr. Henry Erlich, Researcher Emeritus at Benioff UCSF Children's Hospital, joins the show to discuss his book, Genetic Reconstruction of the Past: DNA Analysis in Forensics and Human Evolution. We chatted about what it was like to pioneer PCR tests along with how PCR testing works, its applications (including medicine, understanding human evolution, and forensics), and some of the ethical dilemmas around DNA testing more generally. Books, articles, and media mentioned in this episode + helpful sites and articles: Erlich, H. (2023). . Oxford University Press. Ed. H Erlich, E Stover, TJ...
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Dr. Christopher Schmitt - Vervets and woolly monkeys
AnthroBiology Podcast
Dr. Christopher Schmitt of Boston University joins the show to talk about how he uses life history theory and epigenetics as a lens for his work with vervets and woolly monkeys. We also chatted about the highs of fieldwork, along with understanding how identity can affect an individual's experience of the field. Books, articles, and media mentioned in this episode + helpful sites and articles: Schmitt, C., Service, S., Jasinska, A. et al. . Int J Obes 42, 765–774 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2017.301 Carrey, N. (2011). . Stearns, S.C. (1992). . Oxford...
info_outlineDr. Christine Drea of Duke University joined the show to talk about mechanisms of female dominance, which is when females of a species are more dominant in groups than males. Dr. Drea looks at how genetics, hormones, and social dynamics interact with each other to result in female dominance in hyenas, meerkats, and lemurs.
Content warning: We talk about animal genitalia and hyenas' traumatic birthing process.
Books, articles, and media mentioned in this episode + helpful sites and articles:
- Dr. Drea’s faculty page at Duke University
- Dr. Drea’s website
- Dr. Drea’s ResearchGate profile
- Dixons, A. (2012). Primate Sexuality: Comparative Studies of the Prosimians, Monkeys, Apes, and Humans. Oxford University Press.
- Ellison, P. (2003). On Fertile Ground: A Natural History of Human Reproduction. Harvard University Press.
- Grebe, Nicholas & Sheikh, Alizeh & Ohannessian, Laury & Drea, Christine. (2023). Effects of Oxytocin Receptor Blockade on Dyadic Social Behavior in Monogamous and Non-Monogamous Eulemur. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 150. 106044. 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2023.106044.
- Bornbusch, Sally & Clarke, Tara & Hobilalaina, Sylvia & Reseva, Honore & LaFleur, Marni & Drea, Christine. (2022). Microbial rewilding in the gut microbiomes of captive ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) in Madagascar. Scientific Reports. 12. 10.1038/s41598-022-26861-0.
- Drea, Christine & Grebe, Nicholas. (2022). Intraspecific Aggression and Social Dominance. (chapter in The Routledge International Handbook of Comparative Psychology, ed. by Freeberg, Ridley, and d'Ettorre)
- Bornbusch, Sally & Greene, Lydia & Rahobilalaina, Sylvia & Calkins, Samantha & Rothman, Ryan & Clarke, Tara & LaFleur, Marni & Drea, Christine. (2022). Gut microbiota of ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) vary across natural and captive populations and correlate with environmental microbiota. Animal Microbiome. 4. 10.1186/s42523-022-00176-x.
- Grebe, Nicholas & Sheikh, Alizeh & Drea, Christine. (2022). Integrating the female masculinization and challenge hypotheses: Female dominance, male deference, and seasonal hormone fluctuations in adult blue-eyed black lemurs (Eulemur flavifrons). Hormones and Behavior. 139. 105108. 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2022.105108.
- Drea, Christine & Davies, Charli & Greene, Lydia & Mitchell, Jessica & Blondel, Dimitri & Shearer, Caroline & Feldblum, Joseph & Dimac-Stohl, Kristin & Smyth-Kabay, Kendra & Clutton-Brock, Tim. (2021). An intergenerational androgenic mechanism of female intrasexual competition in the cooperatively breeding meerkat. Nature Communications. 12. 10.1038/s41467-021-27496-x.
- Conley, Alan & Place, Ned & Legacki, Erin & Hammond, Geoffrey & Cunha, Gerald & Drea, Christine & Weldele, Mary & Glickman, Stephen. (2020). Spotted hyaenas and the sexual spectrum: reproductive endocrinology and development. Journal of Endocrinology. 247. 10.1530/JOE-20-0252.
- Smyth, Kendra & Caruso, Nicholas & Davies, Charli & Clutton-Brock, Tim & Drea, Christine. (2018). Social and endocrine correlates of immune function in meerkats: Implications for the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis. Royal Society Open Science. 5. 180435. 10.1098/rsos.180435.
- Drea, Christine & Coscia, Elizabeth & Glickman, Stephen. (2018). Hyenas. (chapter in The Encyclopedia of Reproduction from Academic Press, ed. Michael Skinner)