Big surprise, Apes are like us!

The newest issue of American Journal of Primatology has a lead article on chimpanzee demography. The data were collected from a captive colony in Australia and reveal an interesting aspect of female reproduction. According to the author, Judith Littleton, reproductive success, fertility and mortality are highly related to "social circumstances."

Social arrangements in chimpanzee groups can dramatically alter overall reproductive success for females as can nutrition by decreasing the age at first birth and decreasing the interbirth interval.

What this means for human evolution is unclear at this point, but there must be some advantage to our (extremely) late maturation, seeing as how H. sapiens has exploded over the planet and has much higher fecundity than our Great Ape relatives.

I'm interested to see where this leads.