Doctoral Dissertation Research: Climbing Performance in African Apes

与现存的猿类相比，人类的手臂相对较短，腿相对较长，这与我们独特的两足步态（两足行走）和地面生活有关。为了更好地理解人类运动进化，研究人员想知道两足行走何时以及如何影响人类运动的其他方面。在本论文项目中，学生合作PI将比较人类，黑猩猩和大猩猩的攀爬性能方面，以了解一系列身体尺寸和肢体比例如何影响攀爬能力。这项研究对理解人类进化、运动和力学具有广泛的意义。更多地了解攀岩性能也可以解决如何限制攀岩伤害，评估风险，并为运动和军事攀岩设计技术。该项目还将支持研究生培训，并向STEM领域代表性不足的群体以及当地社区和运动员进行科学宣传。本研究的目的是建立肢体比例和身体大小对人类，黑猩猩和大猩猩的攀爬性能的影响，通过评估三个方面的攀爬性能：精力消耗，疲劳，和树冠访问。共同研究者将收集刚果共和国努瓦巴尔-恩多基国家公园同域分布的人类、黑猩猩和大猩猩种群以及人类攀岩者的行为运动数据，以控制环境变化并观察一系列大小和比例变化。人类是否以及在多大程度上是树栖的仍有争议，更具体地说，各种人类类群的运动剧目中垂直攀爬的相对突出仍然是一个问题。这项研究将导致更全面地了解攀登的形式/功能关系，并评估人类进化过程中双足适应的选择如何影响攀登能力。它还可能改善对化石分类群生态学的评估。

Compared to the living apes, humans are notably different in having relatively short arms and long legs, which is functionally related to our unique, two-legged gait (bipedalism) and life on the ground. To better understand hominin locomotor evolution, researchers want to know when and how bipedalism affected other aspects of hominin mobility. In this dissertation project, the student co-PI will compare aspects of climbing performance in humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas to see how a range of body sizes and limb proportions affects climbing ability. The research has broad implications for understanding human evolution, movement and mechanics. Understanding more about climbing performance can also address how to limit climbing injuries, assess risk, and design technology for both sport and military climbing pursuits. This project will also support graduate student training, and science outreach to groups underrepresented in STEM fields and to local communities and athletes. The objective of this study is to establish the effects of limb proportions and body size on the climbing performance of humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas by assessing three aspects of climbing performance: energetic cost, fatigue, and canopy access. The co-PI will collect behavioral locomotor data in sympatric human, chimpanzee, and gorilla populations in Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, Republic of Congo, and in human rock climbers, to control for environmental variation and observe a range of size and proportion variation. Whether, and to what extent, hominins were arboreal continues to be debated, and, more specifically, the relative prominence of vertical climbing in the locomotor repertoires of various hominin taxa remains an issue. This study will result in a more comprehensive understanding of the form/function relationship for climbing, and enable the assessment of how selection for bipedal adaptations affected climbing abilities during human evolution. It may also improve assessments of the ecology of fossil taxa.