Doctoral Dissertation Research: Climbing Performance in African Apes

与现存的猿类相比，人类的明显不同在于手臂相对较短，腿较长，这在功能上与我们独特的两条腿步态（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。在这个论文项目中，该学生将比较人类、黑猩猩和大猩猩攀爬能力的各个方面，以了解身体大小和肢体比例的范围如何影响攀爬能力。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，以及为体育和军事攀岩活动设计技术。该项目还将支持研究生培训，并向STEM领域中代表性不足的群体以及当地社区和运动员提供科学宣传。摘要本研究通过对人类、黑猩猩和大猩猩攀爬行为的能量消耗、疲劳和林冠通道三个方面的评估，探讨了四肢比例和体型对它们攀爬行为的影响。该项目将收集刚果共和国Nouabale-Ndoki国家公园的同栖人类、黑猩猩和大猩猩种群的行为运动数据，以及人类攀岩者的行为运动数据，以控制环境变化，并观察大小和比例变化的范围。古人类是否以及在多大程度上是树栖的仍在争论中，更具体地说，在各种古人类分类群的运动技能中，垂直攀爬的相对突出仍然是一个问题。这项研究将使我们更全面地了解攀爬的形式/功能关系，并使我们能够评估在人类进化过程中，两足动物适应的选择是如何影响攀爬能力的。它还可以改善对化石分类群生态的评估。

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.