Collaborative Proposal: Kinematics of Quadrupedal Locomotion in Free-Ranging Primates

大多数灵长类动物都部分或完全生活在树上（树栖），它们在狭窄、陡峭和弯曲的树枝上轻松行走和奔跑的能力常常吸引着观察者。该项目的目标是研究野生灵长类动物在自然环境中四足运动（四肢运动）的机制，以更深入地了解灵长类动物的树栖运动能力。过去对灵长类动物四足力学的研究主要来自实验室研究，但在这项研究中，研究人员将使用先进且耐用的视频技术，以实现在野外运动的高分辨率测量。这个项目的结果将进一步加深我们对运动适应的理解，运动适应被认为是我们早期灵长类祖先进化的核心。该项目将支持本科生和研究生培训，并将通过高中项目和与德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校已建立的科学推广项目合作，加强K-12 STEM教育和公众宣传。该项目的研究结果将与灵长类动物保护工作、科学教育和野外社区外展有关。该项目将通过分析厄瓜多尔蒂普蒂尼生物多样性站的10种自由放的新世界猴子，来测试关于灵长类动物运动适应的直接和最终决定因素的假设。研究人员将使用多摄像机、高速、高分辨率摄像、在一系列基质上采样树木运动和量化标准运动时空变量来记录四足灵长类动物在自然栖息地的运动运动学。将使用新方法量化树栖运动基板的形态，具体测量包括基板直径、三维基板方向、基板高于地面的高度和基板的顺应性。通过在明确的系统发育框架中分析运动变异的决定因素，研究人员将探索历史、异速生长和功能对灵长类四足行走的影响。这项研究将增加现有的实验室和现场数据，通过为步态性能的标准度量提供生态有效性，提高运动学和基底变化的标准现场测量的精度，从而开辟新的领域。比较系统发育框架将允许“现场”测试运动特征和底物变异方面之间的功能关联，这些功能关联以前仅在实验室研究中得到证明。这些知识对于理解灵长类四足动物进化的独特方面的适应环境至关重要。

The majority of primate species are partially or completely tree-dwelling (arboreal), and they often captivate observers with their ability to walk and run with ease over narrow, steep, and bending branches. The goal of this project is to investigate the mechanics of quadrupedal locomotion (movement on four limbs) in wild primates moving in their natural environments, to provide a deeper understanding of primate arboreal athleticism. Past studies of primate quadrupedal mechanics have largely come from laboratory-based research, but in this study researchers will use advanced and durable video technologies that permit high-resolution measures of locomotion in the wild. The results of this project will further our understanding of locomotor adaptations that are thought to be central to the evolution of our early primate ancestors. The project will support undergraduate and graduate student training, and will enhance K-12 STEM education and public outreach through high school programs and collaborations with established science outreach programs at UT Austin. Findings from this project will be relevant to primate conservation efforts, science education, and community outreach at the field location. This project will test hypotheses about the proximate and ultimate determinants of primate locomotor adaptation through analysis of ten free-ranging New World monkey species at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in Ecuador. The investigators will document the locomotor kinematics of quadrupedal primates moving in their natural habitats using multi-camera, high-speed, high-resolution videography, sampling arboreal locomotion on a range of substrates and quantifying standard kinematic spatiotemporal variables. The morphology of the arboreal locomotor substrates will be quantified using novel methods, with specific measurements including substrate diameter, three-dimensional substrate orientation, substrate height above the ground, and substrate compliance. By analyzing the determinants of kinematic variation in an explicit phylogenetic framework, researchers will explore historical, allometric, and functional influences on primate quadrupedalism. This research will add to existing laboratory and field data, breaking new ground by lending ecological validity to standard metrics of gait performance and increasing the precision of standard field measurements of kinematics and substrate variation. The comparative phylogenetic framework will allow "field" testing of functional associations between kinematic features and aspects of substrate variation that have been previously demonstrated only in laboratory studies. Such knowledge is critical to understanding the adaptive context in which the distinctive aspects of primate quadrupedalism evolved.