My past research revealed, for example, that more promiscuous primates have higher white blood cell counts, as expected if these species experience greater risk of acquiring sexually transmitted disease. I went on to perform the first comparative tests of parasitism in primates, and I have been modeling the spread of disease in relation to primate mating systems. Much of this work is summarized in a book that I published with Sonia Altizer.
In addition to disease ecology, I have been studying the evolution of mammalian sleep. Sleep is an evolutionary puzzle. Unlike activities such as mating, foraging and caring for offspring, the functional benefits of sleep are unclear, and the costs of sleep appear to be substantial. Our comparative and modeling research revealed the fundamental importance of ecological constraints, such as foraging and predation, on sleep times in mammals. I am now bringing these questions to the field in Madagascar, where I will study sleep ecology in wild lemurs.
I am also interested in cultural evolution, both in non-human primates and in humans. At a comparative scale, I developed a spatially-explicit simulation model to investigate phylogenetic and geographic methods for cross-cultural studies. Within populations, I have been developing new approaches to study the spread of cultural traits, and with my graduate student Mathias Franz, we are developing likelihood-based methods to detect social learning.
This broad approach integrates variation at multiple levels of biological organization and involves extensive collaboration with other researchers. I welcome students and visiting scientists who are interested in applying these integrative approaches to address their research interests.
Associate Professor
Peabody Museum
11 Divinity Avenue
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
617 495-4710
cnunn [at] oeb.harvard.edu
by Charles Nunn
and Sonia Altizer
Oxford University Press
2006