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

LTREB：自由生活的食肉动物行为和形态发育的综合研究。霍尔坎芭芭拉湖Lundrigan Kim T.斑鬣狗（Crocuta crocuta）是一种长寿的群居食肉动物，具有独特的行为、内分泌和形态特征。自1988年以来，Holekamp博士及其同事一直在研究肯尼亚一个大型斑点鬣狗种群成员的行为生态学，主要关注社会行为的发展。年龄，性别，亲属关系和社会地位是已知的所有纳塔尔的动物在研究人口，和社会历史是已知的所有鬣狗在13岁以下。大多数成年氏族成员都戴着无线电项圈，这样他们就可以定期定位和观察。拟议的LTEB项目将支持对该研究人群进行长期研究的新方面。具体来说，Holekamp博士将与形态计量学家（Lundrigan博士）和遗传学家（Scribner博士）联手实现三个新目标。(1)首先，一种新的行为和形态测量技术的组合将被用来检查与年龄相关的变化，形态的摄食器官，饮食，摄食行为和摄食性能。拟议工作的这一部分将包括记录（新的和存档的数据）与年龄相关的咀嚼，觅食，进食行为和饮食的变化;在现场进行简单的性能测试，以评估每个年龄的最大进食能力;以及定量分析与年龄相关的头骨形态变化。(2)第二个目标是开始监测第二个斑点鬣狗种群（较少暴露于人类）的行为，生长和人口统计学，以询问与年龄相关的觅食能力限制是否可能使某些年龄性别类的鬣狗比其他人更容易受到人为干扰的影响。(3)最后，在这两个鬣狗种群，遗传标记，结合行为数据，将被用来阐明行为反应之间的关系，人为干扰和健身递减与这种干扰。拟议的工作将揭示相当多的自然和人为选择的压力作用于鬣狗在生命的每个阶段。它还将结合联合收割机几种不同的数据类型，所有收集的自然生态和进化的背景下，整合传统的分离方法的生活史进化的研究。这些结果不仅对理解斑点鬣狗所表达的独特特征很重要，而且更普遍地说，对理解与年龄相关的约束在行为进化中的作用很重要。从两个不同的鬣狗研究种群的数据，这将是可能的，以量化人为干扰的影响，同时对行为和健身，确定生态变量，可能是负责人口的差异，并评估这些变量对动物的相对影响在不同的年龄，性别和等级类。这是一个独特的机会来记录人类活动引起的行为变化的适应性后果。希望这项工作将作为一个模型，用于理解其他哺乳动物食肉动物（包括那些稀有和濒危动物）的行为，形态，健身，人口统计和人类干扰之间的复杂关系。

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.