Collaborative Research On Population Differences In Vervet Monkey Life History

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Patricia Whitten博士和Trudy Turner博士将研究生活史在肯尼亚长尾猴种群分化中的作用。这项合作研究结合了遗传学、内分泌学、形态学、人口学和行为学的数据和专业知识。生活史分析将个人生命的事件和过程与人口和物种层面的人口和进化事件联系起来。生长、成熟和老化的时间对种群的行为、人口学和遗传结构具有重要影响。这项研究将使用一个独特的数据集，结合遗传、形态测量和社会生态学信息，在四个生态上不同的扇尾猴种群中调查这些影响。遗传亲缘关系将用8-10个多态微卫星座位进行评估。等位基因频率将被用来确定迁移率和群体之间的分化。父子关系和母亲身份将通过检查个体之间的等位基因共享来确定。血清肾上腺和性腺类固醇的浓度将用放射免疫测定法进行评估。内分泌数据将与形态数据相结合，以评估种群在成熟和老龄化方面的差异。这些分析将被用来解决几个问题：1.男性会迁徙到有兄弟的部队吗？2.在竞争对手更多、遗传亲缘关系较低的群体中生活时，压力荷尔蒙是否会更高？3.男性和女性的压力水平以及男性的父子关系是否会影响对后代的行为？4.一个群体中成年体型的增加是不是因为生活在该群体中的男性和女性的成熟延迟和生长延长？5.在资源更丰富的群体中，个体成熟和衰老更快吗？这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。数据集提供了一个深入了解一组生物体的机会，这在动物研究中很少获得，因为采样的动物数量和所检查的生物系统的范围都是如此。这些数据提供了种群水平现象和个体生理学之间的联系，这将为社会行为和生活史提供新的见解。在物种内部，生活史上的变异很少有文献记载。更好地理解物种对当地条件的兼性适应和进化适应之间的平衡，可以增强我们对物种间生活史差异的进化的理解。

With National Science Foundation support, Drs. Patricia Whitten and Trudy Turner will investigate the role of life history in divergence of populations of vervet monkeys in Kenya. This collaborative research combines data and expertise from genetics, endocrinology, morphology, demography and behavior. Life history analyses link the events and processes of an individual's life to demographic and evolutionary events at the population and species level. The timing of growth, maturation and aging have important consequences for behavior, demography and the genetic structure of populations. This research will investigate these effects using a unique data set combining genetic, morphometric and socioecological information in four ecologically distinct populations of vervet monkeys. Genetic relatedness will be assessed with 8-10 polymorphic microsatellite loci. Allele frequencies will be used to determine migration rates and differentiation among groups and populations. Paternity and maternity will be ascertained by examining allele sharing between individuals. Serum concentrations of adrenal and gonadal steroids will be assessed by radioimmunoassay. Endocrine data will be combined with morphological data to assess population differences in maturation and aging. These analyses will be used to address several questions: 1. Do males migrate to troops where they have brothers? 2. Are stress hormones higher when living in groups with more competitors and lower genetic relatedness? 3. Do stress levels in males and females and paternity in males affect behavior toward offspring? 4. Do increases in adult body size in a population result from delayed maturation and prolonged growth in males and females living in that population? 5. Do individuals in populations with richer resources mature and age more rapidly? This research is important for several reasons. The data set provides an opportunity to gain an in-depth portrait of a group of organisms that is rarely obtained in animal studies, because of both the number of animals sampled and the range of biological systems examined. These data provide a link between population level phenomena and individual physiology that will provide new insights into social behavior and life history. Within species variation in life history is poorly documented. A better understanding of the balance between facultative and evolutionary adaptations to local conditions within species can enhance our understanding of the evolution of life history differences across species.