New subject: BERG/SHAIR seminar today, 16:00

2 Feb 2026

Dear All,
This Wednesday (4pm) we have a seminar led by Berta Roura-Torres (Georg-August University
Göttingen) entitled "Early challenges shape fitness trajectories in mandrills"
(abstract below). The meeting will be held online (link below).
Abstract:
Adverse events during early life that reduce access to resources or hinder their
allocation can have lasting effects on health, survival, and reproduction in mammals,
including humans, and the accumulation of such challenges often has stronger consequences
than single events. Using a 12-year dataset from a wild population of mandrills
(Mandrillus sphinx), a cercopithecine primate, we examined how early life adversity (ELA)
influences survival during infancy (under 1 year) and juvenility (1–4 years), female age
at first reproduction, and male age at dispersal. We identified seven types of adversity,
covering maternal, social, environmental, and demographic factors, and analyzed both their
cumulative and individual effects. Infant survival was affected solely by maternal loss,
with cumulative ELA showing no impact. Female reproductive timing responded to specific
early-life conditions: individuals with a closely spaced younger sibling, born to
low-ranking mothers, born in years with reduced rainfall, or with higher cumulative ELA
reproduced later, whereas females born to primiparous mothers reproduced earlier. In
contrast, male age at dispersal showed no effect of ELA. Overall, these findings indicate
that cumulative adversity does not consistently shape survival in mandrills, but it can
influence female reproductive timing. They further suggest that the consequences of
early-life challenges vary across life-history traits and sexes, with particular
conditions sometimes playing a larger role than the accumulation of adversity in shaping
fitness. Finally, this talk presents preliminary results on early physical development
during infancy, obtained using an innovative non-invasive approach based on a trained AI
model applied to photographic portrait, which may represent a potential pathway linking
ELA to later-life survival and reproductive outcomes.
Link to the meeting:
BERG research seminars | Meeting-Join | Microsoft
Teams<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2F…
BERG seminar schedule (Spring 2025)
Date
Speaker
Affiliation
Talk title
Chair
4-Feb-26
Berta Roura-Torres
Georg-August University Göttingen
Early challenges shape fitness trajectories in mandrills
Pawel
11-Feb-26
Dylan Feldmeier
University of Oxford
The Global Threat of Wire Snare Poaching: Impacts and Research Priorities
Pawel
18-Feb-26
Ashleigh Messenger
University of Stirling
TBC. Ring-tailed lemur personality and welfare
Pawel
25-Feb-26
Floriane Fournier
Université Jean Monnet
TBC. Nonlinear phenomena in vocal emotional expression and perception in bonobos
Pawel
4-Mar-26
MID SEMESTER BREAK
11-Mar-26
IMPACT meeting
Impact research catch up
Pawel
18-Mar-26
Robert Aitchison
University of Stirling
TBC. Carrion crow vocal behaviour
Pawel
25-Mar-26
Janie Fink
University of St Andrews; University of California Davis
TBC. Comparative cognition, bee cognition
Pawel
1-Apr-26
Maleen Thiele
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
TBC
Alex
8-Apr-26
Stephan Kaufhold
Univesity of California, San Diego
TBC
Alex
29-Apr-26
Patrick Allsop
Bangor University
TBC. Zanzibar red colobus, human-wildlife conflict
Pawel
Best wishes,
Pawel
-------------------------------
Dr Pawel Fedurek (he/his)
Lecturer in Psychology
Behaviour and Evolution Research Group (BERG)
Division of Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences
University of Stirling
Stirling, FK9 4LA
Scotland, UK
@pawel-fedurek<https://bsky.app/profile/pawel-fedurek.bsky.social>
@berg-stirling<https://bsky.app/profile/berg-stirling.bsky.social>
Staff page<https://www.stir.ac.uk/people/1080868> | BERG
page<https://www.stir.ac.uk/about/faculties/natural-sciences/our-research/research-groups/behaviour-and-evolution-research-group/>
I aim to reply within 3 working days (my working days are between Monday and Friday).
________________________________
Scotland’s University for Sporting Excellence
The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159

BERG/SHAIR seminar this Wednesday, 16:00