Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Social and Ecological Determinants of Fission-Fusion Sociality in Ateles Belzebuth in Ecuador

蜘蛛猴是少数生活在社会群体中的哺乳动物物种之一，它们表现出“裂变-融合”的动态，群体成员分成可变和不断变化的小团体，用于日常觅食和旅行。个体动物关于何时与其他群体成员交往以及与谁交往的决定被认为受到许多社会生态因素的影响，包括食物资源的可用性和栖息地中捕食的风险，动物自身和其他群体成员的生殖状况，以及动物与社会群体中其他个体的遗传关系。该项目将调查这些不同类别的变量对白腹蛛猴的分组模式的相对影响，使用在亚苏尼国家公园，厄瓜多尔收集的观察数据以及从非侵入性收集的样本收集的遗传和激素数据的组合。这项研究将有助于进一步了解灵长类和其他哺乳动物群体模式进化的基本原理。假设类似的一般生物学原理适用，那么对影响蜘蛛猴灵活分组模式的因素的阐明将有助于我们确定生活在裂变融合系统中的不同哺乳动物群体之间共享的社会和生态条件（例如，海豚、大象、土狼）。此外，这项研究将有助于理解人类社会行为的进化，因为蜘蛛猴在行为和生态上与黑猩猩趋同，黑猩猩是目前为最早的人类行为提供最接近的生活类似物的非人类灵长类动物。蜘蛛猴和黑猩猩在社会组织方面有着许多共同的特征，包括雄性崇拜、雌性分散、强大的雄性-雄性联合、灵活的亚群联合，除了他们融合的灵活的社会协会。这将有助于一个持续的长期-在厄瓜多尔的Tiputini生物多样性站对同域亚马逊灵长类动物的比较行为生物学进行长期调查，并协助保护厄瓜多尔亚马逊地区的森林。此外，它将有助于加强厄瓜多尔和哥伦比亚当地研究人员与美国机构之间的合作。最近，通过启动哥伦比亚灵长类项目，开始将该项目（厄瓜多尔灵长类项目）扩展到新热带地区的其他实地。在厄瓜多尔和哥伦比亚，Proyecto Primates为多名学生和年轻专业人员提供了机会，以巩固他们的实地经验，并获得行为和生态科学方面的专业知识。

Spider monkey are one of a handful of mammalian species that live in social groups that display "fission-fusion" dynamics, where group members break into small parties of variable and changing composition for daily foraging and travel. An individual animal's decisions about when to associate with other group members and with whom to associate are thought to be influenced by a number of socioecological factors, including the availability of food resources and the risk of predation in the habitat, the animal's own reproductive status and that of other group members, and the animal's genetic relatedness to other individuals in its social group. This project will investigate the relative influence of these different classes of variables on the grouping patterns of white-bellied spider monkeys using a combination of observational data collected in Yasuni National Park, Ecuador as well as genetic and hormonal data on gleaned from noninvasively collected samples. The study will contribute to further understanding of the principles underlying the evolution of grouping patterns in primates and other mammals. Assuming that similar general biological principles apply, then an elucidation of the factors influencing flexible grouping patterns in spider monkeys will help us identify the social and ecological conditions that are shared amongst different groups of mammals that live in fission-fusion systems (e.g., dolphins, elephants, hyenas). Additionally, the study will contribute to an understanding of the evolution of human social behavior as spider monkeys are behaviorally and ecologically convergent with chimpanzees, the nonhuman primate which currently provides the closest living analogs for the behavior of the earliest hominins. Spider monkeys and chimpanzees share a variety of characteristics of social organization, including male philopatry, female dispersal, and strong male-male associations flexible subgrouping associations, in addition to their convergent flexible social associations.This will contribute to an ongoing long-term investigation on the comparative behavioral biology of sympatric Amazonian primates at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in Ecuador and assist in efforts at protecting forested areas in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Additionally, it will help to strengthen the collaborations between local researchers in Ecuador and Colombia and institutions in the United States. The extension of this project (Proyecto Primates Ecuador) into other field sites in the neotropics has recently started through the launch of Proyecto Primates Colombia. In both Ecuador and Colombia, Proyecto Primates has provided the opportunity to multiple students and young professionals to build on their field experience and gain expertise in the behavioral and ecological sciences.