Endocrine Aspects of Aggression and Dominance in Chimpanzees

这项研究将是第一个记录两种激素，睾丸激素和皮质醇的浓度，是如何与野生黑猩猩的社会行为和营养平面。 我们将研究两个野生黑猩猩种群（在乌干达的基巴莱国家公园和坦桑尼亚的贡贝国家公园），它们生活在一个习惯性的群落中，每个群落大约有10只成年雄性。 在每个站点，我们将收集树上个体的尿液，并将其冷冻以供日后分析。 我们还将对成年黑猩猩的社会行为进行系统的观察，包括攻击和服从的比率，性行为和联盟。 然后，我们将发现（就像我们的试点研究一样）睾丸激素和统治地位在成年雄性黑猩猩中是否始终相互关联，如果是这样，两者如何也与攻击频率相关。 我们还将确定性行为的水平如何与两种激素相关，激素水平如何响应群体组成而变化，以及它们如何与食物供应的季节性波动相关。 通过分析野生黑猩猩的激素与攻击性之间的关系，这项研究将有助于理解人类平行系统的进化和功能。

This study will be the first to document how the concentrations of two hormones, testosterone and cortisol, are related to the social behavior and nutritional plane of wild chimpanzees. We will study two wild populations of chimpanzees (in Kibale National Park, Uganda; and Gombe National Park, Tanzania), living in habituated communities that each contain about 10 adult males. In each site we will collect urine from individuals in trees and freeze it for later analysis. We will also make systematic observations of the social behavior of adult chimpanzees, including rates of aggression and submission, sexual behavior, and alliances. We will then find out whether (as in our pilot study) testosterone and dominance are consistently related to each other among adult male chimpanzees, and if so, how both are also related to the frequency of aggression. We will also establish how levels of sexual behavior are related to both hormones, how hormonal levels change in response to group composition, and how they are related to seasonal fluctuations in food supply. By analyzing the relationship between hormones and aggression in wild chimpanzees, this study will contribute to understanding the evolution and function of the parallel system in humans.