RAPID: Time critical survey of great ape population size, health and genetics in threatened habitats

RAPID：对受威胁栖息地的类人猿种群规模、健康状况和遗传学进行时间紧迫的调查

• 批准号: 1743506
• 负责人: Deus Mjungu
• 金额: $ 8.95万
• 依托单位: The Jane Goodall Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-09-01 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1743506&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Time; critical; survey; great

This RAPID award will support a survey of wild chimpanzees living in an area that is immediately threatened by deforestation and agricultural expansion, near but outside of Gombe National Park. The demographics of this chimpanzee group, and the relationship of this group to wild chimpanzees on protected lands, are not well understood. As part of the survey, biosamples will be non-invasively collected, so that genetic relationships and dispersal patterns can be understood in the context of habitat pressure and as comparative data for understanding hominin evolution. The project will foster international research collaborations and contribute to endangered primate conservation efforts.The chimpanzees of Gombe National Park, Tanzania, have played a central role in anthropological and biological studies, contributing to the understanding of human evolution through elucidating the similarities and differences between chimpanzees and humans, and providing fundamental insights into topics including behavior, ecology, life history, and disease ecology. Also, a substantial chimpanzee population has persisted 10-20 km to the northeast of the park within a recently established network of village forest reserves along the Gombe-Burundi Ridge. Little is known about the extent to which these populations are currently connected. Moreover, recent surveys and satellite images show that the northern population faces immediate threats from tree cutting, farming, and other activities. The investigators will work with village forest monitors to conduct a thorough survey of these chimpanzees, procuring, before the population dwindles, fecal samples vital for future research. Non-invasive genetic and biomarker analyses will provide new insights into chimpanzee dispersal patterns, microbiome and pathogen diversity, and the speed at which anthropogenic habitat fragmentation influences population differentiation.

该RAPID奖将支持对生活在贡贝国家公园附近但不在该公园内的野生黑猩猩进行调查，该地区立即受到森林砍伐和农业扩张的威胁。这个黑猩猩群体的人口统计数据，以及这个群体与保护区内野生黑猩猩的关系，还没有得到很好的了解。 作为调查的一部分，将以非侵入性方式收集生物样本，以便在栖息地压力的背景下了解遗传关系和扩散模式，并作为了解人类进化的比较数据。坦桑尼亚贡贝国家公园的黑猩猩在人类学和生物学研究中发挥了核心作用，通过阐明黑猩猩和人类之间的相似性和差异，为人类进化的理解做出了贡献，并为行为，生态学，生活史，疾病生态学。 此外，在公园东北10-20公里处，沿着贡贝-布隆迪山脊沿着最近建立的村庄森林保护区网络内，一直有大量的黑猩猩种群。目前对这些人群的联系程度知之甚少。此外，最近的调查和卫星图像显示，北方人口面临着砍伐树木、耕作和其他活动的直接威胁。研究人员将与村庄的森林监测员合作，对这些黑猩猩进行彻底的调查，在黑猩猩数量减少之前，获取对未来研究至关重要的粪便样本。非侵入性遗传和生物标志物分析将为黑猩猩的扩散模式、微生物组和病原体多样性以及人为栖息地破碎化影响种群分化的速度提供新的见解。