LTREB: Integrated Study of Behavioral and Morphological Development in Free-Living Carnivores

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

LTREB: Integrated study of behavioral and morphological development in free-living carnivoresProposal #IBN0113170Kay E. HolekampBarbara L. LundriganKim T. ScribnerSpotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) are long-lived, gregarious carnivores exhibiting a unique suite of behavioral, endocrine, and morphological characteristics. Since 1988, Dr. Holekamp and associates have been studying the behavioral ecology of members of one large spotted hyena population in Kenya, focusing mainly on the development of social behavior. Age, sex, kin relations, and social status are known for all natal animals in the study population, and social histories are known for all hyenas under 13 years of age. Most adult clan members of both sexes wear radio collars so they can be regularly located and observed. The proposed LTREB project will support new aspects of long-term research with this study population. Specifically, Dr. Holekamp will join forces with a morphometrician (Dr. Lundrigan) and a geneticist (Dr. Scribner) to achieve three new goals. (1) First, a novel combination of behavioral and morphometric techniques will be used to examine age-related changes in morphology of the feeding apparatus, diet, feeding behavior, and feeding performance. This portion of the proposed work will include documentation (with new and archived data) of age-related change in chewing, foraging, feeding behavior, and diet; administration of simple performance tests in the field to assess maximal feeding capabilities at each age; and quantitative analysis of age-related changes in skull morphology. (2) The second goal is to start monitoring behavior, growth, and demography in a second spotted hyena population (one less exposed to humans) to inquire whether age-related constraints on foraging abilities might make certain age-sex classes of hyenas more vulnerable than others to effects of anthropogenic disturbance. (3) Finally, in both hyena populations, genetic markers, in conjunction with behavioral data, will be used to elucidate the relationship between behavioral responses to anthropogenic disturbance and fitness decrements associated with such disturbance. The proposed work will shed considerable light on the natural and anthropogenic selection pressures acting on hyenas during each stage of life. It will also combine several different data types, all collected in a natural ecological and evolutionary context, to integrate traditionally disjunct approaches to the study of life history evolution. The results should be important not only for understanding the unique suite of traits expressed by spotted hyenas, but more generally, for understanding the role of age-related constraints in the evolution of behavior. With the data from the two different hyena study populations, it will be possible to quantify the effects of anthropogenic disturbance concurrently on both behavior and fitness, identify ecological variables that might be responsible for population differences, and assess the relative effects of these variables on animals in different age, sex, and rank classes. This is a unique opportunity to document the adaptive consequences of behavioral change in response to human activity. It is hoped that the proposed work will serve as a model for understanding the complex relationships among behavior, morphology, fitness, demography, and human disturbance in other mammalian carnivores, including those that are rare and endangered.