68 / Alberts & Rubenstein Obituary:

Stuart A. Altmann, Ph.D. (8 June 1930 - 13 October 2016)

by Susan C. Alberts1 and Daniel I. Rubenstein2

1Departments of Biology and Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; 2Department of and Evolutionary Biology, , Princeton, NJ, USA

Stuart Altmann was born in St. Louis, Missouri and grew up in Los Angeles, California. Left: Stuart Altmann in 1964, during the He was both a scientist and an Altmanns’ first trip to Amboseli. artist, working as a biologist Below: Stuart Altmann collecting data for his professional life and on yellow baboons (Papio cynocephalus), pursuing ceramics expertly as Amboseli, circa 1975. Photographs an avocation. courtesy of Jeanne Altmann. His formal scientific training began at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he first completed a Bachelor’s degree and then a Master’s degree in Biology in 1953. He studied under George Bartholomew, researching the mobbing behavior of birds. He was drafted into the Army and served from 1954 to 1956 as a research scientist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. At the end of his army service, he hitched a ride to Panama on army transport planes and used his carefully accumulated leave time to study the Barro still commonly cited in the twenty-first century, Colorado howler monkeys, publishing a paper that and Altmann’s “priority of access” model has greatly is still cited today for its descriptions of primate influenced subsequent work on the relationship vocalizations. He attended between dominance rank and mating success in between 1956 and 1960 as E. O. Wilson’s first Ph.D. male mammals. student, adopting a decidedly sociobiological What set Altmann apart from his peers was perspective that he and Wilson developed in his ability to frame problems conceptually, use extensive conversations comparing primates and mathematical models to make strong predictions social insects. He conducted his Ph.D. research on and then draw on his natural history insights and the rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago in Puerto systematic observations to test them. What emerged Rico, while he was revitalizing and managing the was a new way of thinking and framing of behavioral colony under the sponsorship of W. F. Windle at the questions. His quantitative approach transformed National Institutes of Health (NIH). the study of primate behavior. In addition, in an This research, motivated by his interest in era when interest in behavior as an adaptation communication, produced a series of papers was burgeoning, Altmann set high standards for between 1962 and 1968 that represent a seminal a very detailed understanding of the functional contribution to primate behavioral ecology. The consequences of behaviors such as foraging, and of first of these analyzed reproductive behavior; it is how we evaluate adaptation in nature. Stuart A. Altmann / 69

Stuart Altmann with Jeanne Altmann, in Amboseli circa 1987. Photo by O. Douglas-Hamilton, courtesy of J. Altmann.

In the summer of 1958, he met his future wife Jeanne when they were both working for the NIH, and they married in 1959. He began his first faculty position at the in 1960, and moved to Yerkes National Primate Research Center in 1965. In 1970, he moved to a joint appointment in the Biology Department (which later became the Department of Ecology and Evolution) and the Anatomy Department at the . He became Emeritus Professor at University of Chicago in 1995, and beginning in 1998 was a Senior Lecturer at rank of Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. In 1963–64, Stuart and Jeanne Altmann made their first trip to what was then the Amboseli- Maasai Game Reserve, later Amboseli National Park, in southern , to study the Amboseli baboons. They returned to Amboseli for short trips in 1969 and 1970. In 1971, they returned again, and began collecting the longitudinal data on the Amboseli baboon population that is still being collected today. The establishment of the Amboseli research site proved to be a foundational contribution to the study of primates. The research at this site continues to provide new knowledge Stuart trimming a pot on his wheel, early 2000s. and insights about primate behavior and 70 / Alberts & Rubenstein

evolution, 54 years after Stuart and Jeanne arrived in Altmann, S.A. 1979. Baboon progressions: order Amboseli and 46 years after the establishment of the or chaos? A study of one-dimensional group long-term research. geometry. Animal Behaviour 27: 46-80. Stuart was a mentor and friend to us and to Altmann, S.A. 1981. Dominance relationships: the many others. Through both his science and his art, Cheshire cat’s grin. Behavioral and Brain Sciences he influenced so many lives in complex, unexpected, 4: 430-431. and remarkable ways. He is deeply missed, and will Hausfater, G., J. Altmann & S. Altmann. 1982. Long- always be with us in spirit. Term Consistency of Dominance Relations Among Female Baboons (Papio cynocephalus). A selection of Stuart Altmann’s publications Science 217: 752-755. Altmann, J., G. Hausfater & S.A. Altmann. 1985. Altmann, S.A. 1958. How to predict what an animal Demography of Amboseli baboons, 1963-1983. will do next. Anatomical Record 131: 527-527. American Journal of Primatology 8: 113-125. Altmann, S.A. 1962. A field study of the sociobiology Altmann, S.A., D.G. Post & D.F. Klein. 1987. of rhesus monkeys, Macaca mulatta. Annals of Nutrients and toxins of plants in Amboseli, the New York Academy of Sciences 102: 338-435. Kenya. African Journal of Ecology 25: 279-293. Altmann, S.A. 1965. The sociobiology of rhesus Altmann, S.A. 1987. The impact of locomotor monkeys. 2. Stochastics of social communication. energetics on mammalian foraging. Journal of Journal of Theoretical Biology 8: 490-522. Zoology 211: 215-225. Altmann, S.A. 1968. The sociobiology of rhesus Welsh, A.H., A.T. Peterson & S.A. Altmann. 1988. monkeys. 3. Basic communication network. The fallacy of averages.American Naturalist 132: Behaviour 32: 17-32. 277-288. Altmann, S.A. 1968. The sociobiology of rhesus Muruthi, P., J. Altmann & S. Altmann. 1991. Resource monkeys. 4. Testing Mason’s hypothesis of sex base, parity, and reproductive condition affect differences in affective behaviour. Behaviour 32: females’ feeding time and nutrient intake within 49-69. and between groups of a baboon population. Altmann, S.A. & J. Altmann. 1970. Baboon Ecology. Oecologia 87: 467-472. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Altmann, S.A. 1991. Diets of yearling female Altmann, S.A. 1974. Baboons, space, time, and primates (Papio cynocephalus) predict lifetime energy. American Zoologist 14: 221-248. fitness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Altmann, S.A. & J. Altmann. 1977. On the analysis Sciences of the United States of America 88: 420- of rates of behaviour. Animal Behaviour 25: 364- 423. 372. Altmann, S.A. 1998. Foraging for Survival. University Altmann, S.A., S.S. Wagner & S. Lenington. 1977. of Chicago Press, Chicago. Two models for the evolution of polygyny. Altmann, S.A. & J. Altmann. 2003. The Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 2: 397-410. transformation of behaviour field studies. Animal Altmann, J., S.A. Altmann & G. Hausfater. 1978. Behaviour 65: 413-423. Primate infant’s effects on mother’s future Altmann, S.A. 2009. Fallback foods, eclectic reproduction. Science 201: 1028-1030. omnivores, and the packaging problem. Altmann, S.A. 1979. Altruistic behavior: the fallacy American Journal of Physical Anthropology 140: of kin deployment. Animal Behaviour 27: 958- 615-629. 959.