Doctoral Dissertation Research: Grouping dynamics of lowland woolly monkeys

多层次社会是自然界中发现的一些最复杂的社会制度，已在包括大象、鲸目动物、鸟类、来自非洲和亚洲的一些非人类灵长类动物以及人类在内的各种分类中得到确认。然而，很少有人注意到新大陆灵长类动物中可能存在多层次社会的例子。为了解决这一差距，并对多级社会的原因和后果提供更多的见解，拟议的研究将集中在厄瓜多尔亚马逊地区的Tiputini生物多样性站(TBS)的绒猴的群体内和群体间的关联模式。在TBS，毛猴群体可能分裂成持续数小时甚至数天的协调一致的小群体，但与其他多层次社会类似，具有社会凝聚力的群体也可能结合成临时的超级群体，一起休息、旅行和觅食几个小时。这两种行为模式都让人联想到人类的社会制度。该项目将在亚马逊具有全球生物多样性重要意义的研究地点建立长期的生态、行为和遗传数据集，并将支持一名女研究生和研究助理的专业发展。该项目将利用社会网络分析，定量评估毛猴是否形成与其他多层次社会一致的可预测分组水平。此外，行为数据将与分子遗传学方法相结合，以调查范围使用、遗传亲缘关系、生殖状况以及对相同年龄和/或性别类别的其他人的吸引力如何影响时空联系。这项拟议的研究是从明确的多层次角度对新大陆灵长类动物的社会动力学进行的首批调查之一，并有望为理解人类和非人类灵长类动物的社会性带来新的见解。此外，通过将遗传关系与社会网络结构相关联，该项目将提供一个关键的比较数据集，在其中检查亲属关系在维持社会单位内和社会单位之间附属关系方面的重要性。

Multilevel societies are some of the most complex social systems found in nature and have been identified in a wide array of taxa including elephants, cetaceans, birds, some species of non-human primates from Africa and Asia, and humans. However, little attention has been paid to possible examples of multilevel societies among New World primates. To resolve this gap and to provide additional insights into the causes and consequences of multilevel societies, the proposed research will focus on within- and between-group association patterns of woolly monkeys at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station (TBS) in Amazonian Ecuador. At TBS, woolly monkey groups may fission into small coordinated subgroups that persist for hours or even days, but similar to other multilevel societies, socially-cohesive groups may also coalesce into temporary supergroups that rest, travel, and forage together for several hours. Both of these patterns of behavior are reminiscent of human social systems. The project will contribute to long-term ecological, behavioral, and genetic datasets on an Amazonian research site of global biodiversity significance and will support the professional development of a female graduate student and research assistants.Utilizing social network analysis, this project will quantitatively assess whether woolly monkeys form predictable grouping levels consistent with other multilevel societies. Additionally, behavioral data will be coupled with molecular genetic methods to investigate how range use, genetic relatedness, reproductive status, and attraction to others of the same age and/or sex class influence spatiotemporal associations. The proposed study represents one of the first investigations of the social dynamics of a New World primate from an explicitly multilevel perspective and promises to bring new insights to the understanding of sociality in humans and non-human primates. Additionally, by correlating genetic relatedness with social network structure, this project will provide a critical comparative dataset in which to examine the importance of kinship in maintaining affiliative relationships within and across social units.