The natural history of model organisms: the rhesus macaque as a success story of the Anthropocene
- New York University, United States
- University of Exeter, United Kingdom
- Arizona State University, United States
- University of Mysore, India
- National Institute of Advanced Studies, India
- Institute of Genetics and Animal Biotechnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
- Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
- Guangxi Normal University, China
Abstract
Of all the non-human primate species studied by researchers, the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) is likely the most widely used across biological disciplines. Rhesus macaques have thrived during the Anthropocene and now have the largest natural range of any non-human primate. They are highly social, exhibit marked genetic diversity, and display remarkable niche flexibility (which allows them to live in a range of habitats and survive on a variety of diets). These characteristics mean that rhesus macaques are well-suited for understanding the links between sociality, health and fitness, and also for investigating intra-specific variation, adaptation and other topics in evolutionary ecology.
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Author details
Noah Snyder-Mackler
Suchinda Malaivijitnond
Funding
National Institutes of Health (R01-AG060931)
- Eve B Cooper
- Lauren JN Brent
- Noah Snyder-Mackler
- James P Higham
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2022, Cooper et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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The natural history of model organisms: the rhesus macaque as a success story of the Anthropocene
eLife 11:e78169.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.78169
