What baboons can teach us about social status

Turns out it's not bad being top dog, or in this case, top baboon.

A new study by University of Notre Dame biologist Beth Archie and colleagues from Princeton and Duke Universities finds that high-ranking male baboons recover more quickly from injuries and are less likely to become ill than other males.

Archie, Jeanne Altmann of Princeton and Susan Alberts of Duke examined health records from the Amboseli Baboon Research Project in Kenya. They found that high rank is associated with faster wound healing. The finding is somewhat surprising, given that top-ranked males also experience high stress, which should suppress immune responses. They also found that social status is a better predictor of wound healing than age.

"In humans and animals, it has always been a big debate whether the stress of being on top is better or worse than the stress of being on the bottom," said Archie, lead researcher on the study. "Our results suggest that, while animals in both positions experience stress, several factors that go along with high rank might serve to protect males from the negative effects of stress."