Title: Social behavior and health in wild baboons

Abstract: Social behavior can have profound effects on health. In this talk, I will present two projects that address the sociality-health axis in one of the best-studied populations of wild primates in the world: the Amboseli Baboon population in Kenya. In the first project, I discuss the effects of social connectedness on female longevity. In the second project, I discuss new research on social effects on the composition and function of the gut microbiome. Both projects reveal striking effects of social behavior on health-related phenotypes, and they provide strong evidence that the strength and identity of social bonds mediate diverse outcomes, from host-associated microbial communities to individual life spans.