Doctoral Dissertation Research: Water as a Selective Pressure in the Evolution of Primate Behavior

人类可以在没有食物的情况下存活数周，但在没有水的情况下只能存活数天，现代人类已经找到了在世界干旱地区生活的创造性和文化传播的解决方案。然而，人们对水的寻找和选择行为的进化起源知之甚少。这个博士论文项目旨在了解灵长类动物在经历高度季节性条件下对缺水的适应，包括它们如何定位和导航到水源，为什么它们选择某些水源而不是其他水源，以及这些决定对它们的健康和生存有什么影响。该项目的结果将有助于了解影响缺水生境中人类和灵长类动物进化的因素，并为未来生活在干旱地区的人类和灵长类动物的干预措施提供信息。该项目还将支持研究生培训和国际合作，学生共同负责人将与研究地点周围的社区分享水质数据。本项目将测试水分布和水质影响范围模式和水偏好的假设，以及这些行为对寄生虫感染有下游影响的假设。该项目将研究生活在马达加斯加西部Kirindy森林的一群习性野生红额狐猴（Eulemur rufifrons），它们在每年9个月的旱季中存活下来，而旱季通常不会下雨。这些狐猴生活在静止的水坑里，这些水坑的颜色、清晰度和距离都有所不同。这个结合观测和实验的项目将采用高分辨率GPS项圈，通过实验控制水的可用性和质量。胃肠道寄生虫感染动态也将进行分析。通过这项研究，pi将有助于建立一个新的理论框架，重点关注水和水传播疾病作为灵长类动物行为的选择压力，以及灵长类动物在生活或扩展到干燥栖息地时所面临的权衡。

Humans can survive for weeks without food, but only days without water, and modern human populations have found creative and culturally-transmitted solutions for living in dry areas of the world. However, little is known about the evolutionary origins of water-seeking and selection behaviors. This doctoral dissertation project aims to understand adaptations to water scarcity in primates that experience highly seasonal conditions, including how they locate and navigate to water sources, why they select certain water sources over others, and what impact these decisions have on their health and survival. The results of this project will contribute to understanding factors that influenced human and primate evolution in water-scarce habitats, and could inform future interventions for humans and primates living in drought areas. The project will also support graduate student training and international collaborations, and the student co-PI will share data on water quality with communities around the study site. This project will test the hypotheses that water distribution and water quality influence ranging patterns and water preference, and that these behaviors have downstream effects on parasite infection. The project will study a population of habituated, wild red-fronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons) at Kirindy Forest in western Madagascar that is remarkable for surviving an annual 9-month dry season in which no rain typically falls. These lemurs subsist on standing waterholes that vary in color, clarity, and distance from lemur groups' home ranges. This combined observational and experimental project will employ high-resolution GPS collars, experimentally manipulated water availability and quality. Gastrointestinal parasite infection dynamics will also be analyzed. Through this research, the PIs will contribute to a new theoretical framework focused on water and water-borne disease as a selective pressure on primate behavior, and on the trade-offs that primates face when living in or expanding into dry habitats.