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

蜘蛛猴是少数几种群居的哺乳动物之一，它们表现出“裂变-融合”的动态，在这种动态中，群体成员分成不同的小群体，每天都在不断变化，以进行觅食和旅行。动物个体决定何时与其他群体成员交往以及与谁交往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被捕食的风险，动物自身和其他群体成员的生殖状况，以及动物与其社会群体中其他个体的遗传亲缘关系。该项目将利用在厄瓜多尔亚苏尼国家公园收集的观测数据以及从非侵入性收集的样本中收集的遗传和激素数据，调查这些不同类别的变量对白腹蜘蛛猴分组模式的相对影响。这项研究将有助于进一步了解灵长类动物和其他哺乳动物分组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（例如海豚、大象、鬣狗）之间共享的社会和生态条件。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，而黑猩猩是目前与最早的人类行为最接近的非人类灵长类动物。蜘蛛猴和黑猩猩除了具有趋同的灵活社会关系外，还具有多种社会组织特征，包括雄性亲爱、雌性分散、强烈的雄性-雄性关联以及灵活的亚群关联。这将有助于在厄瓜多尔蒂普蒂尼生物多样性站对同属亚马逊灵长类动物的比较行为生物学进行长期调查，并有助于保护厄瓜多尔亚马逊森林地区的努力。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，该项目（厄瓜多尔灵长类项目）扩展到新热带地区的其他野外地点。在厄瓜多尔和哥伦比亚，灵长类项目为众多学生和年轻专业人士提供了机会，以积累他们的实地经验，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.