Relationship of Foraging Strategy and Social Organization in Western Lowland Gorillas

西部低地大猩猩觅食策略与社会组织的关系

• 批准号: 0001673
• 负责人: Diane Doran
• 金额: $ 32.53万
• 依托单位: SUNY at Stony Brook
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-08-01 至 2004-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0001673&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Relationship; Foraging; Strategy; Social; Organization

This award will be used to continue a long-term study on the behavioral ecology of the western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) at the Mondika Research Center, Central African Republic. The primary long-term goal of the study is to determine whether and/or how variation in ecological and social factors influences gorilla sociality, in order to evaluate current models of primate socioecology. Specifically, western lowland gorillas consume foods (fruit and aquatic herbs in swamps) that are more difficult to locate in the environment, compared to the abundant terrestrial herbs of mountain gorillas. Current socioecological thought suggests that differences in food availability may lead to differences in competition within and between groups, and that this in turn will influence the nature of social behavior. Currently, these questions cannot be addressed, because although mountain gorillas have been studied extensively, little is known about western lowland gorillas in the wild. In this study, the researchers will initially habituate two gorilla groups to the presence of people at Mondika, in order to conduct studies of their foraging strategy and social behavior, in addition to studies of resource availability (distribution, abundance and density). This information will allow determination of the role of resource availability in shaping social behavior in African apes, which will in turn, be fundamentally important in understanding how differing ecological factors influenced sociality in our earlier human ancestors.

该奖项将用于继续中非共和国蒙迪卡研究中心对西部低地大猩猩（Gorilla gorilla）行为生态学的长期研究。该研究的主要长期目标是确定生态和社会因素的变化是否和/或如何影响大猩猩的社会性，以评估当前的灵长类社会生态学模型。具体来说，与山地大猩猩丰富的陆地草本植物相比，西部低地大猩猩消耗的食物（沼泽中的水果和水生草本植物）更难以在环境中找到。当前的社会生态学思想表明，食物供应的差异可能导致群体内部和群体之间竞争的差异，而这反过来又会影响社会行为的本质。目前，这些问题还无法得到解决，因为尽管对山地大猩猩进行了广泛的研究，但对野外的西部低地大猩猩却知之甚少。 在这项研究中，研究人员首先会让两个大猩猩群习惯蒙迪卡人类的存在，以便研究它们的觅食策略和社会行为，以及资源可用性（分布、丰度和密度）的研究。 这些信息将有助于确定资源可用性在塑造非洲猿类社会行为中的作用，这反过来对于理解不同的生态因素如何影响我们早期人类祖先的社会性至关重要。