For Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D., the lemurs that have inhabited Madagascar for more than 60 million years provide not only insights into a species considered man's earliest ancestor, but also keys to understanding modern human behavior.
Specializing in the ecology and social structure of these early primates has led Sussman down diverging paths. He has starred in a documentary with Marlin Perkins, debunked the theory that primate infanticide creates a reproductive advantage, examined historic aerial photographic records and satellite data to find evidence of rapid deforestation in Madagascar and entered the debate about race and racism among humans.
"The best thing about anthropology is that it is all encompassing. I can study anything I want to and still have it pertain to the field," said Sussman, a professor of anthropology in Arts and Sciences. "Anthropology for me is a hobby, a lifestyle and a profession."
Sussman believes anthropology provides a wider view and a social conscience to issues in the everyday world. "Many of the problems humans currently face, both globally and nationally, are the subject matter of anthropology, from AIDS to homelessness to international economic interdependence," he said.
"Biological anthropologists are like the entomologists of humans," he added. "They can have a holistic view as they study human evolution, behavior and morphology. No other discipline encompasses both why humans became what they are and where they are going."
Whether delivering a dynamic lecture in the classroom, recording the behavioral patterns of primates in the field or stimulating debate through published articles, Sussman brings enthusiasm and intellectual depth to his work.
"Bob is highly respected in the field," said Paul Garber, a former graduate student of Sussman's who is now a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "He came in at an important time in primatology. When others were studying anatomy, he addressed the ecological questions concerning how species exploit their environment and how ecology and anatomy are related. He was among the first to examine how two closely related species living in the same forest could behave so differently."
The 230,000-square-mile island is believed to have broken off the mainland of Africa due to continental drift at least 150 million years ago. During the last 60 million years, as evolution led to the origin of new, more advanced species on neighboring mainlands, Madagascar departed on its own evolutionary detour. This allowed the continued, protected development of thousands of species, many of which -- including diurnal lemurs -- either became extinct or simply never developed elsewhere.
Sussman's field work involves recording and analyzing the behavior of early primates. His ground breaking studies on two lemur species were the subject of Perkins' "Lemurs of Madagascar" on the Wild Kingdom television series in 1980-81.
During ecological studies, Sussman will spend days at a time breaking down behavioral patterns of primates into short increments of time. When analyzed together, these snapshots give an overall picture of the animals' activity cycles. Sussman also notes the interaction both among individual members of a group and between groups, as well as how the animals' behavior is influenced by their environment and their social structure. During his long-term studies, he captures the animals to tag them and gather other data including weight, size, dental patterns, general physical condition and reproductive state.
When Sussman began studying diurnal lemurs in 1969, few researchers had conducted long-term studies, and it was widely believed that no two closely related species of primates could co-exist and share the same niche. In the early 1970s, the debate intensified with the discovery of the skeletal remains of both a gracile -- or slightly built -- and a robust hominid in the same area.
Using his background in ecology, Sussman's 18-month field study showed how the ringtail lemur and brown lemur can, in fact, have overlapping habitats by surviving primarily on different diets. The driving question for Sussman has been how much of their differing survival strategies relates to physiology and how much to social behavior.
In addition to Madagascar, Sussman has conducted field work in Guyana, Costa Rica, Mauritius and Panama. His wife, Linda Sussman, Ph.D., a medical anthropologist and research associate in the anthropology department, has accompanied him on numerous expeditions to conduct parallel studies in her field. In the early years, the couple's oldest daughter, Katya, also went with them. Their family expeditions became more complicated after their second daughter, Diana, was born, Sussman said.
The author of numerous articles, Sussman also has written or edited four books -- "Lemur Biology," "Primate Ecology," "The Perception of Evolution" and the "Biological Basis of Human Behavior." The last, which started as a reader for one of his courses and now is being published as a leading textbook, includes an introduction to evolution; examines fallacies about "man the hunter," race, racism and genetic determinism; and studies the relationships among the brain, hormones and behavior.
Over the years, Sussman has received research grants from the National Science Foundation, Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network, National Institutes of Health, Fulbright Scholar Program, National Geographic Society and World Wildlife Fund.
He also has entered into a number of collaborative studies. In 1978, Sussman, along with colleagues from Yale University and the University of Madagascar, helped establish a government-protected reserve in southwest Madagascar.
Convinced that the tropical rain forest on other parts of the island was rapidly diminishing, Sussman teamed up in 1987-88 with Glen Green, then a graduate student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts and Sciences.
By analyzing 40-year-old French aerial photographs and satellite images from 1972 and 1985, Sussman and Green demonstrated that half of the island's rain forests have vanished since 1950 due to the Malagasy methods of subsistence farming and firewood gathering. In addition to documenting the actual deforestation for the first time, the maps include an extrapolation foreshadowing almost complete deforestation 35 years hence. Their study, which was published in the journal Science, also predicts that the island's dry forests in the southwest will be endangered.
In another collaboration, Sussman and Jane Phillips-Conroy, Ph.D., an associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology at the School of Medicine and of anthropology in Arts and Sciences, teamed up in 1989 for a study of primates in Guyana. The two initially participated in the sister-city delegation from St. Louis that visited the South American city of Georgetown, Guyana. In 1992-93, Sussman and Phillips-Conroy conducted an exploratory survey to locate potential research sites and studied primate populations in Guyana. Their field work uncovered a dramatic decline in that country's monkey population over the last 20 years, indicating that not only the monkeys but other species sharing the same habitat may soon become endangered.
Phillips-Conroy, who was a student of Sussman's in the early 1970s and later became his colleague, said she always has been impressed by his tenacity and drive. "Bob is a very dynamic and energetic person and he was able to communicate as a teacher his enthusiasm for having just completed one of the first long-term studies of primates in Madagascar," she said. "He is one of the people who have made primatology the field that it is today, and he has remained very actively engaged in his work."
Phillips-Conroy added that Sussman also has been instrumental in strengthening the anthropology department, which initially had two physical anthropologists. The department now has seven, including three who hold primary appointments at the medical school.
Graduate student Terry Gleason said Sussman is known for his approachability, broad interests in anthropological questions and passion for his subject matter. "He is genuinely excited about what he teaches. He loves what he is talking about, and he wants you to love it, too," Gleason said. "He's both a well rounded scholar and he's very down to Earth. He's not one to bury you in scientism."
One of Sussman's most popular courses is a seminar on behavioral studies conducted at the St. Louis Zoo in which he teaches the basics of data collection and how to present findings in a research paper. Several of his students' papers have been published nationally, and a number of the students have gone on to pursue a master's or doctoral thesis based on their initial studies.
Above all, Sussman hopes that his students will learn to evaluate data with scientific skepticism. "There are a number of false theories -- from biological determinism to primate infanticide as part of sexual selection -- that when you actually look at the data, you find out they are wrong," he said.
Sussman originally became interested in anthropology while studying sociology and race relations at the University of California at Los Angeles. He soon realized that many of his questions could more appropriately be answered by physical anthropology. He then studied with primatologist Jack Prost, who helped Sussman launch his career focusing on prosimians in Madagascar. After receiving a bachelor's degree in 1965 and a master's degree in 1967, both from UCLA, Sussman followed Prost to Duke University to pursue a doctorate in anthropology, which he received in 1972. He joined the Washington University faculty in 1973.
Sussman believes strongly that the issue of racism has been greatly misunderstood. "Through studies of human evolution and genetics, we know there are no races or subspecies in humans. Racism thus becomes a social question," he said. "We judge other people by how much their world meshes with ours -- it's an arbitrary, learned factor."
Sussman stresses that the time is ripe for anthropologists, as cross-cultural experts in human behavior and evolution, to play a major role in addressing current racial divisiveness. He hopes the journal will help put such questions in perspective.
"Anthropologists historically have been at the forefront of debunking theories about the biological basis of racial differences," he said. "Anthropology itself is at a crossroads. It can continue along the path of becoming an esoteric discipline, or it can again be central to the public debate on such issues as race and racism."
-- Ann Nicholson
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