The Primate Nutrition Lab is welcoming a new PhD student, Cole Mitsdarfer, this fall! Cole is interested in behavioral ecology and behavioral plasticity of group living primates, focusing on the impacts of invasive and anthropogenic foods. Previously, he interned at the Lincoln Park Zoo’s Fisher Center and Animal Welfare Science Program studying captive animal welfare, …
Dr. Bryer visited Uganda in July 2026 to deliver project supplies and work with John Rusoke, Nelson Mwesige and Sabiiti Richard, but kept the visit short for public health safety. L’Hoest’s monkey (Allochrocebus lhoesti) and redtail monkey (Cercopithecus ascanius) behavioral data collection and plant food collection are going well. Check out some highlights below!
Since March 2025, Nature’s Valley Baboon Project has been providing the Nature’s Valley, South Africa, residents with a monthly “Baboon Bulletin” via the NGO NVT‘s social media. This requested community-facing report includes monthly information on (1) where our research team saw the baboons outside of residential areas, providing residents with a more complete picture of …
For June – August 2026, three University of Wisconsin-Madison students, primate nutrition lab members Sophia Mummert (PhD student), Griffyn Jones (undergraduate student who received the Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowship) and Luis Vazquez Chavez (undergraduate student), are in Nature’s Valley, South Africa to complete independent research projects as part of the Nature’s Valley Baboon Project and …
Two UW-Madison undergraduates who first worked on data entry and organization in our research group and then spent summer 2025 in Nature’s Valley, South Africa, published articles in the local South African journal Nature’s Letters! Check out “Grooming equitability in female chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) following group fusion in Nature’s Valley, South Africa” led by UW-Madison …
We have a new paper out in the American Journal of Primatology! “Fungal diversity and potential health benefits of mycophagy in chacma baboons (Papio ursinus)” is open access and can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajp.70146 We identified 10 species of fungi consumed by chacma baboons in Nature’s Valley, South Africa, and discussed the potential health implications …
University of Wisconsin-Madison senior and Wildlife Ecology and Anthropology double major Isabelle Anderson presented a poster at the UW Undergraduate Symposium in April 2026 on her summer 2025 field project in South Africa and Wildlife Ecology Capstone! She examined the extent of indigenous versus non-indigenous plant foods in the baboon diet in Nature’s Valley, South …
University of Wisconsin-Madison second-year undergraduate Elana Berghoff (Nutritional Sciences major) presented at the American Association of Biological Anthropologists (AABA) Committee on Diversity (COD) Undergraduate Symposium in Denver, Colorado, in March 2026! She presented a poster on preliminary results on L’Hoest’s monkey (Allochrocebus lhoesti) socioecology at Kanyawara site in Kibale National Park. Specifically she presented a …
Three female primatologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison spoke to The Daily Cardinal on Jane Goodall’s influence on their lives and research. Dr. Karen Strier, Dr. Margaret Bryer and Dr. Alexandra Kralick were interviewed about the influence of Jane Goodall for the student newspaper serving the University of Wisconsin-Madison community. Read the full article here. …
Undergraduate students Isabelle Anderson (UW-Madison) and Gabrielle Mostow (Harvard University) presented posters at the Midwest Primate Interest Group meeting in Chicago in September 2025! Both students spent their summer in Nature’s Valley, South Africa, studying wild chacma baboons as part of the Nature’s Valley Baboon Project (NVBP). Isabelle’s project examined the contribution of indigenous versus …