Dissertation Research: Female Mate Choice in Free-Ranging Rhesus Macaques

这项研究项目将在波多黎各圣地亚哥的卡约圣地亚哥测试一系列关于雌性猕猴在自由放养范围内选择配偶的假设。具体地说，研究人员将研究女性对较低级别的男性的偏好，而不是较高级别的男性。这将是第一个关注女性伴侣偏好的项目：以前的项目都是围绕男性的选择。这个项目将有助于消除导致许多灵长类动物学家认为女性择偶只会加强男性竞争的选择性效应的文化偏见。这将使雌性灵长类动物积极参与生殖过程。增加我们对灵长类适应性繁殖策略范围的了解，将有助于物理人类学家构建更好的模型来解释灵长类和原始人的进化，并增加我们对灵长类社会行为的了解。

This research project will test a series of hypotheses about female mate choice among free.ranging provisioned rhesus macaques at Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico. Specifically the researcher will look at female preferences for lower as opposed to high ranking males. This will be the first project to look at female mate preferences: earlier projects have centered on male choices. This project will help eliminate the cultural biases that have led many primatologists to assume that female mate choice only reinforces the selective effects of male.male competition. It will make female primates active participants in the reproductive process. An increase in our understanding of the range of adaptive reproductive strategies in primates will help physical anthropologists construct better models to explain primate and hominid evolution as well as increase our knowledge of primate social behavior.