How do natural disasters shape the behavior and social networks of rhesus macaques?
A team of researchers from Penn, the University of Exeter, and elsewhere found that after Hurricane Maria monkeys on the devastated island of Cayo Santiago formed more friendships and became more tolerant of each other, despite fewer resources.
A team of researchers led by Penn neuroscientist Michael Platt had been studying a colony of rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago, a small Puerto Rican island, for a decade when Hurricane Maria hit. The island had been devastated. A massive effort by the team on the ground allowed the work to get back up and running, putting the researchers in a unique position to study how the monkeys’ behavior may have changed in response to an acute natural disaster. (Image: Lauren Brent)