Female Sociality, Dispersal, and Comparative Microbial Community Composition in Pan troglodytes

研究集中在人类和许多其他灵长类动物的特殊程度的社会性特征上，已经清楚地证明了强大的社会关系带来的适应性好处。这些积极的好处包括增进健康、长寿和生育成功率，以及相关的压力减轻、适应力增强和社会学习能力增强。强大的社会关系所带来的多重且至关重要的好处表明，在这些适应性结果的基础上存在进化机制。然而，在复杂的、多层次的社会中发现，在像我们这样特别长寿的物种中，破译发育起源的核心方面，以及在高度社会化的女性一生中保持联系的机制，是很困难的。因此，这项研究将在灵长类动物模型中考察雌性社会关系的发展和纵向方面，即野生黑猩猩，人类的近亲。这些灵长类动物寿命也很长，一生短暂，并且以复杂的社会结构和关系为特征，雌性在成年后移居到新的社区并在此背景下形成社会关系之前，在其出生的社区中发展出强烈的附属关系和优先关系。利用一种独特的研究设计，利用微生物组特征来指示女性在出生和成年社区之间的运动，以及与社会联系相关的遗传、行为和激素数据，该项目将绕过对这些高度社会化的女性的研究限制，并允许提出与理解社会联系、健康和幸福之间关系相关的假设。这项跨学科的合作研究将基于微生物组和常染色体基因型的独特变革分析与行为和内分泌学研究相结合，以解释女性移民的模式，以及女性结合在其一生中的基础、益处和持久性。具体而言，本研究将对1000多只野生雌性黑猩猩进行下一代，直接dna微生物和常染色体测序，以确定出生社区起源，移民模式，以及雌性社会和关系的纵向视角。为了验证女性社会关系是适应性的假设，该研究将对一部分习惯的女性进行激素分析（皮质醇，一种压力标记，催产素，一种结合标记）。这个天然实验室允许检查微生物变异与宿主遗传、生物地理和亲缘关系（亲属关系）之间的关系，这将有助于理解驱动社会关系、宿主-微生物多样性和相关健康后果的因素。通过研究产生的广泛而多样的数据集将广泛传播，促进未来在多个科学领域的研究。相关的培训和合作将以美国和国际合作者和学生为重点，从而提高研究能力。作为模型研究物种的野生灵长类动物是极度濒危的，微生物组和扩散模式数据将在促进物种健康和为保护政策提供信息方面得到应用，特别是在日益分散的栖息地。

Research focused on the exceptional degree of sociality characterizing the human species and many of the other primates has demonstrated clear, adaptive benefits to strong social bonds. These positive benefits include increased health, longevity, and reproductive success, as well as associated reductions in stress, increased resilience, and enhanced social learning. Such multiple and critically important benefits of strong social relationships suggest that there are evolved mechanisms underlying these adaptive consequences. Deciphering the core aspects of developmental origins and the mechanisms accounting for persistence of bonds throughout the lifetime of highly social females, however, is difficult in the complex, multilayered societies found in exceptionally long-lived species such as our own. This research therefore will examine the developmental and longitudinal aspects of female social bonds in a primate model, that of wild chimpanzees, the closest living relatives of humans. These primates also are long-lived, transient during their lifetimes, and characterized by complexly structured societies and relationships, with females developing strong affiliative and preferential bonds in their natal communities, before emigrating to new communities as adults and forming social relationships in this context. Utilizing a unique research design employing microbiome signatures indicative of female movements between their natal and adult communities, as well as genetic, behavioral, and hormonal data related to social bonding, the project will circumvent research limitations for such highly social females and permit addressing hypotheses relevant to understanding the relationships between social bonds, health and well-being.This interdisciplinary, collaborative research applies distinctly transformative microbiome and autosomal genotype-based analyses with behavioral and endocrinological studies to explain patterns of female immigration and the basis for, benefits of, and persistence of female bonds through their lifespan. Specifically, this study will conduct next generation, direct-DNA microbial and autosomal sequencing of over 1000 wild female chimpanzees to determine natal community origins, immigration patterns, and longitudinal perspectives of female sociality and relationships. To test the hypothesis that female social relationships are adaptive, the research will apply hormone analyses (cortisol, a stress marker, and oxytocin, a marker for bonding) to a subset of habituated females. This natural laboratory permits examination of the relationships between microbial variation and host genetics, biogeography, and relatedness (kinship), which will contribute to understanding the factors driving social relationships, host-microbial diversity, and associated health consequences.The expansive and diverse datasets generated through the research will be broadly disseminated, facilitating future research in multiple scientific areas. Associated training and collaboration will focus on both US and international collaborators and students, thereby enhancing research capacity. And as the wild primates serving as the model study species are critically endangered, the microbiome and dispersal patterns data will find application in promoting the health of the species and informing conservation policy, particularly in increasingly fragmented habitats.