The Biomechanics of Specific Locomotion used by Our Closest Living Primate Relatives

社会、行为和经济科学司提供博士后研究奖学金，为最近的博士毕业生提供获得额外培训的机会，在知名科学家的赞助下获得研究经验，并扩大他们在本科和研究生训练之外的科学视野。博士后奖学金的进一步设计是为了帮助新科学家指导他们跨越传统学科线的研究工作，并利用他们自己独特的研究资源、地点和设施，包括在国外的研究地点。这个博士后奖学金奖支持一个在几个科学领域交叉的新兴学者：人类进化、生物力学、进化建模和灵长类学，以调查一种特殊的运动类型（也称为指节行走）的起源，这种运动只有我们最亲近的灵长类亲戚黑猩猩和大猩猩才使用，而我们最早的祖先可能也使用过。这种奇怪的运动方式引发了数十年的研究，重点是为什么动物会用指关节行走而不是其他形式的运动，以及它是何时进化的，进化了多少次。然而，解决任何关于指关节行走起源的假设的关键是基本数据，这些数据可以让研究员了解它是如何工作的。通过充分了解指关节行走的工作原理，项目团队将能够直接调查类人猿指关节行走的起源和进化。这将使研究小组能够推断出它在猿类化石以及人类和黑猩猩最后的共同祖先中的存在。该项目与卢旺达的科学家和学生进行了大量合作，远远超出了简单的实地考察和数据收集。研究小组将接待卢旺达大学生实习，以及在卡里索克研究中心进行高级研究的学生。该项目还为卢旺达本科生和早期职业科学家提供了机会。通过这种类型的国际合作，美国科学家、博士后学者和学生从事有意义的研究，以推动人类学和生物力学领域的最新发展。在这个项目中，一组科学家利用最先进的实验室和现场运动的黑猩猩，大猩猩和猕猴的生物力学分析，以及系统发育比较方法来测试关于这种独特运动形式进化的假设，并了解这种运动行为是如何，何时以及多少次进化的。具体来说，在这个项目中，科学家团队将：1)执行一个3 d jointlevel机械分析关节功能在黑猩猩和趾行的/ palmigrade走在猕猴,2)创建一个计算模型,允许检查关节功能的好处超过其他形式的地面运动,3)用进化建模来跟踪关节功能的进化人科的生命之树,来推断其在化石猿,和4)开发协议收集非侵入式3 d领域从野生运动学数据,极度濒危的山地大猩猩，包括用指关节行走的大猩猩。这项研究将对科学和教育领域产生更广泛的影响。研究人员将制定方案，调查野生的、极度濒危的山地大猩猩的运动。这不仅将为大猩猩的运动提供前所未有的见解，而且这些协议将广泛适用于其他濒危物种。此外，该项目将支持一位早期职业科学家的研究，并将涉及研究生和本科生的指导。通过培训下一代科学家，创建可免费获得的数据资源和研究协议，该项目将有助于发现与我们最近的类人猿亲戚的起源，以及我们自己物种的起源，这远远超出了目前的项目。该项目涉及多个层面的国际合作，由美国国家科学基金会国际科学与工程办公室共同资助。

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences offers postdoctoral research fellowships to provide opportunities for recent doctoral graduates to obtain additional training, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond their undergraduate and graduate training. Postdoctoral fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including at foreign locations. This postdoctoral fellowship award supports a rising scholar at the intersection of several fields of science: Human Evolution, Biomechanics, Evolutionary Modeling and Primatology to investigate the origins of the peculiar type of locomotion (also called knuckle-walking) that is used only by our closest living primate relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, and may have been used by our earliest ancestors. This bizarre form of locomotion has led to decades of research focusing on why an animal would knuckle-walk over any other form of locomotion, and when and how many times it has evolved. However, critical to addressing any hypotheses concerning the origin of knuckle-walking are basic data that allow the Fellow to understand how it works. By fully understanding how knucklewalking works, the project team will be able to directly investigate the origin and evolution of knucklewalking in apes. This will enable the team to infer its presence in fossil apes as well as the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees. The project has substantial collaboration with scientists and students in Rwanda, going much deeper beyond simply doing fieldwork and data collection. The research team will host Rwandan university students for internships, and students conducting their senior research at the Karisoke Research Center. This project also facilitates opportunities to engage Rwandan undergraduate students and early career scientists. Through this type of international collaboration, US scientists, postdoctoral scholars and students engage in meaningful research to advance the state of the art in the field of anthropology and biomechanics.In this project, a team of scientists utilize state-of-the-art laboratory- and field-based biomechanical analyses of locomotion in chimpanzees, gorillas, and macaques, as well as phylogenetic comparative methodologies in order to test assumptions about the evolution of this unique form of locomotion, and to understand how, when, and how many times this locomotor behavior evolved. Specifically, in this project the team of scientists will: 1) perform a 3-D jointlevel mechanical analysis of knuckle-walking in chimpanzees and digitigrade/palmigrade walking in macaques, 2) create a computational model that allows for examination of the benefits of knuckle-walking over other forms of terrestrial locomotion, 3) use evolutionary modeling to track the evolution of knuckle-walking in the hominoid tree of life and to infer its presence in fossil apes, and 4) develop protocols for collecting non-invasive 3-D field kinematic data from wild, critically endangered mountain gorillas, including knuckle-walking. The broader impacts of this research will target both scientific and educational domains. The researchers will develop protocols to investigate locomotion in wild, critically endangered mountain gorillas. This will not only provide never-before-seen insights into gorilla locomotion, but the protocols will be widely applicable to other endangered species. Moreover, this project will support the research of an early-career scientist, and will involve mentoring of graduate and undergraduate students. By training the next generation of scientists and creating freely-available data resources and research protocols, this project will facilitate discoveries about the origin of our closest living ape relatives, as well as the origin of our own species, that go far beyond the present project. The project involves international collaboration at multiple levels, and is co-funded by the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering.