Phylogenetic Comparative Methods in Biological Anthropology

理解人类进化需要重建过去，并确定灵长类特征的适应性基础。对于缺乏明确化石记录的行为、文化、生活史和其他特征，如何实现这一点？计算机生成的基于树的比较方法的发展为我们的进化历史提供了新的见解，过去五年的进展极大地提高了比较研究的统计严谨性。拟议的研究将开发培训机会和分析工具，使生物人类学家更容易采用系统学比较方法。这些资源将包括一棵新的灵长类进化树，可用于控制系统发育的不确定性，以及一个关于灵长类行为和生态特征的免费数据库。首席研究员还将应用这些方法来研究灵长类生态学中的一个基本假设，即社会性增加寄生虫的风险。除了为灵长类社会进化提供新的见解外，目标是演示这些方法，调查它们相对于以前方法的价值，并展示本提案中开发的数据和分析资源。更广泛的影响将涉及两个主要的教育活动。首先，这项工作的一个主要成果将是每年举办一次进化人类学比较方法研讨会，为研究生、博士后研究人员和教师提供培训。每个研讨会将包括三名来自进化生物学和生物人类学的特邀讲师。除了教授这些方法外，研讨会还将建立一个研究人员网络，他们对将比较方法应用于生物人类学中的问题感兴趣。其次，在每一年的资助中，一名哈佛研究生将与PI合作，做出与社会性增加寄生虫风险的假设相关的三个预测中的一个。这将为研究生提供统计学、系统发生学和科学写作方面的实践培训。

Understanding human evolution requires reconstructing the past and identifying the adaptive basis of primate traits. How can this be achieved for behavior, culture, life history, and other traits that lack a clear fossil record? The development of computer generated tree-based comparative methods has provided new insights to our evolutionary past, and advances in the last five years have greatly improved the statistical rigor of comparative studies. The proposed research will develop training opportunities and analysis tools to make phylogenetic comparative approaches more readily available to biological anthropologists. These resources will include a new evolutionary tree of primates that can be used to control for phylogenetic uncertainty and a freely available database on primate behavioral and ecological traits. The principal investigator also will apply the methods to investigate a fundamental hypothesis in primate ecology, namely that sociality increases parasite risk. In addition to providing new insights to primate social evolution, the goal is to demonstrate the methods, investigate their value relative to previous approaches, and exhibit the data and analysis resources developed in this proposal. The broader impacts will involve two major educational activities. First, a major outcome of this work will be a yearly Workshop on Comparative Methods in Evolutionary Anthropology to provide training for graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and faculty. Each workshop will include three invited instructors from evolutionary biology and biological anthropology. In addition to teaching the methods, the workshop will create a network of researchers interested in applying comparative approaches to questions in biological anthropology. Second, in each year of funding a Harvard graduate student will collaborate with the PI on one of three predictions related to the hypothesis that sociality increases parasite risk. This will provide hands-on training in statistics, phylogenetics and scientific writing for the graduate student.