Barbara Smuts

Last updated
Barbara Boardman Smuts
Born1950
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s) Anthropologist, psychologist
Known forSocial relationships among animals

Barbara Boardman Smuts [1] is an American anthropologist and psychologist noted for her research into baboons, dolphins, and chimpanzees, and a Professor Emeritus at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Contents

Smuts received a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Harvard University and a Ph.D in neurological and biological behavioral science from Stanford Medical School. [2] In the 1970s she began studying animal behaviour at the University of Michigan, including research with Jane Goodall on chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, where she had a violent introduction to field research, being among four field researchers kidnapped and beaten by a Marxist revolutionary group. [3] She received the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contribution to Psychology (Area: Animal Learning and Behavior) in 1988. [4]

Personal life and education

Smuts was born to Alice Smuts (1921-2020) and Robert ("Bob") Walter Schmutz (later anglicised to Smuts) in 1950. She has a brother, Robert Malcolm Smuts, born 1949. Smuts moved to Michigan with her family in 1960, and in 1969 to Ann Arbor whilst her mother obtained her Ph.D. [1] She has an undergraduate degree from Harvard University in anthropology, and did her Ph.D. with David Hamburg at Stanford University. [5]

Research

Much of Smuts’ research concerns the development of social relationships between animals, particularly among chimpanzee and baboon populations. Smuts began studies of wild baboons in 1976. [6] Studies she made of wild olive baboons in Tanzania and Kenya inspired her 1985 book Sex and Friendship in Baboons. The book, the fruit of two years' research, showed how two different groups of the same primate interact with each other socially. She determined that friendship was a critical predictor of sexual activity between male and female baboons: females preferred to mate with males that had previously engaged in friendly interactions with them and could interact with their other offspring as well. [7]

Smuts also carried out research into bottlenose dolphin social development, working extensively with Janet Mann. [8]

Smuts' more recent research at the University of Michigan has focused on social behavior among dogs. [5] [9] [10]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chimpanzee</span> Great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa

The chimpanzee, also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close relative the bonobo was more commonly known as the pygmy chimpanzee, this species was often called the common chimpanzee or the robust chimpanzee. The chimpanzee and the bonobo are the only species in the genus Pan. Evidence from fossils and DNA sequencing shows that Pan is a sister taxon to the human lineage and is humans' closest living relative. The chimpanzee is covered in coarse black hair, but has a bare face, fingers, toes, palms of the hands, and soles of the feet. It is larger and more robust than the bonobo, weighing 40–70 kg (88–154 lb) for males and 27–50 kg (60–110 lb) for females and standing 150 cm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Goodall</span> English primatologist and anthropologist (born 1934)

Dame Jane Morris Goodall, formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. She is considered the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, after 60 years studying the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees. Goodall first went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania to observe its chimpanzees in 1960.

<i>Pan</i> (genus) Genus of African great apes

The genus Pan consists of two extant species: the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Taxonomically, these two ape species are collectively termed panins. The two species were formerly collectively called "chimpanzees" or "chimps"; if bonobos were recognized as a separate group at all, they were referred to as "pygmy chimpanzees". Together with humans, gorillas, and orangutans they are part of the family Hominidae. Native to sub-Saharan Africa, chimpanzees and bonobos are currently both found in the Congo jungle, while only the chimpanzee is also found further north in West Africa. Both species are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and in 2017 the Convention on Migratory Species selected the chimpanzee for special protection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Primatology</span> Scientific study of primates

Primatology is the scientific study of primates. It is a diverse discipline at the boundary between mammalogy and anthropology, and researchers can be found in academic departments of anatomy, anthropology, biology, medicine, psychology, veterinary sciences and zoology, as well as in animal sanctuaries, biomedical research facilities, museums and zoos. Primatologists study both living and extinct primates in their natural habitats and in laboratories by conducting field studies and experiments in order to understand aspects of their evolution and behavior.

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Washoe was a female common chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to communicate using American Sign Language (ASL) as part of an animal research experiment on animal language acquisition.

Irven DeVore was an anthropologist and evolutionary biologist, and Curator of Primatology at Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. He headed Harvard's Department of Anthropology from 1987 to 1992. He taught generations of students at Harvard both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He mentored many young scientists who went on to prominence in anthropology and behavioral biology, including Richard Lee, Robert Trivers, Sarah Hrdy, Peter Ellison, Barbara Smuts, Henry Harpending, Marjorie Shostak, Robert Bailey, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Richard Wrangham and Terrence Deacon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olive baboon</span> Also called the Anubis baboon, is a member of the family Cercopithecidae (Old World monkeys)

The olive baboon, also called the Anubis baboon, is a member of the family Cercopithecidae Old World monkeys. The species is the most wide-ranging of all baboons, being native to 25 countries throughout Africa, extending from Mali eastward to Ethiopia and Tanzania. Isolated populations are also present in some mountainous regions of the Sahara. It inhabits savannahs, steppes, and forests. The common name is derived from its coat colour, which is a shade of green-grey at a distance. A variety of communications, vocal and non-vocal, facilitate a complex social structure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gombe Stream National Park</span> National park in Tanzania

Gombe Stream National Park is a national park in Kigoma District of Kigoma Region in Tanzania, 16 km (10 mi) north of Kigoma, the capital of Kigoma Region. Established in 1968, it is one of the smallest national parks in Tanzania, with only 35 km2 (13.5 sq mi) of protected land along the hills of the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. The terrain is distinguished by steep valleys, and the vegetation ranges from grassland to woodland to tropical rainforest. Accessible only by boat, the park is most famous as the location where Jane Goodall pioneered her behavioural research on the common chimpanzee populations. The Kasakela chimpanzee community, featured in several books and documentaries, lives in Gombe National Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social grooming</span> Behavior in social animals

Social grooming is a behavior in which social animals, including humans, clean or maintain one another's body or appearance. A related term, allogrooming, indicates social grooming between members of the same species. Grooming is a major social activity, and a means by which animals who live in close proximity may bond and reinforce social structures, family links, and build companionships. Social grooming is also used as a means of conflict resolution, maternal behavior and reconciliation in some species. Mutual grooming typically describes the act of grooming between two individuals, often as a part of social grooming, pair bonding, or a precoital activity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Wrangham</span> British anthropologist and primatologist

Richard Walter Wrangham is an English anthropologist and primatologist; he is Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. His research and writing have involved ape behavior, human evolution, violence, and cooking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Trimates</span> Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birutė Galdikas

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Goodall Institute</span> Global wildlife and environment conservation organization

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tool use by non-humans</span>

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Anne Elizabeth Pusey is director of the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center and a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University. Since the early 1990s, Pusey has been archiving the data collected from the Gombe chimpanzee project. The collection housed at Duke University consists of a computerized database that Pusey oversees. In addition to archiving Jane Goodall’s research from Gombe, she is involved in field study and advising students at Gombe. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.

References

  1. 1 2 "Alice Smuts Obituary (1921 - 2020) Ann Arbor News". Legacy.com. Retrieved 2021-08-29.
  2. Profile Archived 2009-03-22 at the Wayback Machine at the Council of Human Development
  3. Goodall, Jane (2001). Dale Peterson (ed.). Jane Goodall-Beyond Innocence: An Autobiography in Letters, the later years . New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. pp.  146–147. ISBN   0-618-12520-5 . Retrieved 28 April 2010. smuts.
  4. "APA Distinguished Scientific Awards for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology". www.apa.org. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
  5. 1 2 "Barbara Smuts". Center for Humans & Nature. Retrieved 2021-08-29.
  6. Smuts, B.B. (2009) [First printing 1985]. Sex and Friendship in Baboons . New York: Aldine Publishing Co. p.  5. ISBN   978-0-202-02027-3. Sex and Friendship in Baboons .
  7. Smuts, Barbara B (1985). Sex and Friendship in Baboons . Aldine. ISBN   0-202-02027-4.
  8. Mann, Janet; Barbara Smuts (1999). "Behavioral development in wild bottlenose dolphin newborns (Tursiops sp.)". Behaviour. Netherlands: E J Brill. 136 (5): 529–566. doi:10.1163/156853999501469. ISSN   0005-7959.
  9. Barbara Smuts research profile at UMich.edu
  10. "Barbara Smuts | U-M LSA Department of Psychology". lsa.umich.edu. Retrieved 2021-08-29.