Position
Eugene Higgins Professor Emeritus, EEB

Role
Animal behavior and physiology

Office Phone
609-258-3814

Email
altj@princeton.edu

Assistant
Sandy Cominski

Office
401 Guyot Hall

Website
https://amboselibaboons.nd.edu

CV
jaltmanncv2008-15-17.doc


Bio/Description
My research deals with life history approaches to behavioral ecology and with nonexperimental research design. Most of my empirical work has been carried out on the baboons of Amboseli National Park, Kenya, for which longitudinal studies have been conducted since 1971. We emphasize an integrated, holistic approach by carrying out concurrent studies of behavior, ecology, demography, genetics, and physiology at the level of individuals, social groups, and populations.
Current research centers on the magnitude and sources of variability in primate life histories, parental care, and behavioral ontogeny. For baboons, we are analyzing sources of variability within groups and examining patterns in their stability among groups and populations and across time. In one series of studies we are interested in the extent to which various life-history and developmental parameters are food-limited. In others, we are examining empirically and theoretically the effects of social structure within groups on demographic processes within and among groups and across generations. Recently, my collaborators and I have been conducting studies that relate endocrine and genetic data to demographic and behavioral information for the same individuals in the Amboseli baboon population.