Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Development of Sex Differences in Ring-tailed Lemur Feeding Ecology: Effects of Social and Environmental Stressors

摄食生态学几乎与灵长类生物学和社会性的所有方面有关，与摄食相关的行为和知识的发展是最有证据的生存和繁殖成功的预测因素。尽管它意义重大，但与进食相关的行为和知识的个体发育仍然知之甚少。摄食方面的性别差异可能是最大限度地减少摄食竞争和促进永久社会群体的关键，但也会进一步增加摄食生态个体发育的社会复杂性。进食方面的性别差异与雌性生殖成本增加的次数有关，与永久性生态位划分策略有关，或与性别二态导致的生理差异有关。虽然在灵长类动物中成虫摄食生态的性别差异是有记录的，但它们的发育时间和机制尚不清楚。该项目将整合马达加斯加贝萨·马哈法利特别保护区环尾狐猴的行为、应激内分泌学和森林物候数据，以确定何时出现摄食方面的性别差异。它将研究差异如何与繁殖或生态位划分的成本相关，栖息地质量和压力如何影响幼年环尾狐猴的摄食，以及社会机制如何塑造这些差异。不同质量的栖息地，包括人类退化的栖息地，将提供一个成本梯度，以测试性别差异的发展如何与食物可获得性、死亡风险和压力有关--这些因素都有助于灵长类生活史的进化。通过该项目产生的综合数据集将包括建立一个框架，以测试与健康和生殖成功有关的长期发展问题。然后，这就可以用来探索未来单孔目动物和链鼻目动物之间的比较，目的是了解灵长类动物进食和压力的进化模式。了解灵长类动物进食差异的个体发生学，评估这一生命关键方面的行为和发育策略产生成功成虫的行为和发育策略，以及这些策略在不同类群中的不同或相似之处。该项目还通过研究栖息地退化对狐猴生长和发育的影响以及压力如何随环尾狐猴的生活史阶段波动而具有重要的保护意义。这一信息具有很高的相关性，因为马达加斯加90%的森林栖息地已经因人类使用而退化。该项目还将对一名马达加斯加硕士学生和一名美国助理进行行为生态学方法方面的培训。。

Feeding ecology is linked to nearly all aspects of primate biology and sociality, and the development of the behaviors and knowledge associated with feeding is the best-documented predictor of survival and reproductive success. Despite its significance, the ontogeny of the behaviors and knowledge associated with feeding remain poorly understood. Sex differences in feeding may be key in minimizing feeding competition and facilitating permanent social groups, but also add further social complexity to the ontogeny of feeding ecology. Sex differences in feeding are linked to times of increased costs of reproduction to females, to permanent niche partitioning strategies, or to physiological differences due to sexual dimorphism. While sex differences in feeding ecology of adults are documented across the primate order, the timing and mechanisms of their development are unclear. This project will integrate behavioral, stress endocrinology, and forest phenology data from ring-tailed lemurs at the Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve, Madagascar to identify when sex differences in feeding develop. It will examine how differences are related to costs of reproduction or niche partitioning, how habitat quality and stress impact the development of juvenile ring-tailed lemur feeding, and how social mechanisms shape these differences. Habitats of varying quality, including human-degraded habitats, will provide a cost gradient to test how the development of sex differences is related to food availability, mortality risk, and stress-factors which all contribute to primate life history evolution. The comprehensive dataset generated through this project will include the creation of a framework to test long-term developmental questions relative to health and reproductive success. This can then be used to explore future comparisons among haplorhines and strepsirhines aimed at understanding evolutionary patterns of primate feeding and stress. Understanding the ontogeny of feeding differences across a phylogenetically broad array of primates assesses which behavioral and developmental strategies of this key aspect of life yield successful adults and how these strategies differ or are similar across taxa.This project also has important conservation implications by addressing the effects of habitat degradation on lemur growth and development and how stress fluctuates with ring-tailed lemur life history stages. This information is highly relevant, as 90% of Madagascar's forest habitat has been degraded by human use. This project will additionally train a Malagasy Master's student and an American assistant in methods of behavioral ecology. .