Dissertation Research: Population Genetics, Microevolution of Black Lion Tamarins (Leontopithecus Chrysopygus) and the Molecular Systematics of Lion Tamarins

黑狮绢毛猴（Leontopithecus chrysopygus）只生活在巴西圣保罗州的内陆大西洋森林中。 这种新大陆灵长类动物表现出一种社会组织形式，主要是一夫一妻制，因此与大多数灵长类动物的社会系统形成鲜明对比。 此外，这个物种目前分布在一系列不同大小的森林片段中，与更新世末次冰期高峰期许多新世界灵长类物种的假设分布没有什么不同。 最后，黑狮绢毛猴是一个物种复合体的一部分，该物种复合体还包括另外三个分类群，所有这些分类群都以不完全清楚的方式相互关联。拟议中的研究将使研究人员能够（1）确定一夫一妻制社会制度对交配模式和种群内遗传特征传播的影响;（2）研究了物种分布区破碎化对种群遗传性状扩散和分布的影响;（3）估计了不同狮绢毛猴之间的进化关系，特别是黑狮绢毛猴的位置。 在实现这三个目标的过程中，我们将通过增加一个新的系统，一夫一妻制，来扩展我们对灵长类社会组织的遗传和进化后果的认识，一夫一妻制对遗传特征的分布和进化遗传变化的动力学的影响在很大程度上仍然未知。

Black Lion Tamarins (Leontopithecus chrysopygus) are only found in theAtlantic Forest of the Interior in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Thisspecies of New World primate exhibits a form of social organization that isprimarily monogamous and thus stands in sharp contrast to the socialsystems of the majority of primate species. Additionally, this species iscurrently distributed across an array of forest fragments of differentsizes, not unlike the postulated distributions of many New World primatespecies at the height of the last glaciations of the Pleistocene. Finally,the black lion tamarin is part of a species complex that includes threeother taxa, all of whom are interrelated in ways that are not entirelyclear.The proposed research will allow the investigators to (1) determine the effects of amonogamous social system on mating patterns and the dispersal of genetictraits within populations; (2) examine the effects of a species' rangefragmentation on the dispersal and distribution of genetic traits amongpopulations; and (3) estimate the evolutionary relationships among thedifferent lion tamarins, with particular reference to the position of theblack lion tamarin. In accomplishing these three goals, we will expand ourknowledge of the genetic and evolutionary consequences of primate socialorganization by adding a new system, monogamy, whose effects upon thedistribution of genetic traits and the dynamics of evolutionary geneticchange remain largely unknown.