Doctoral Dissertation Research: Contextual and physiological correlates of complex behavioral strategies in primates

灵长类动物在社会交往中参与了一系列复杂的行为策略。这个博士论文项目将研究友好和攻击性行为的相对重要性，以及这些行为在男女互动中发生的更广泛的背景。该项目将有助于我们了解整个灵长目动物的生殖行为分布。该项目将有助于在实验室中对一名本科生进行激素分析技术的培训。该项目还将有助于保护教育计划和研究地点和家庭机构之间的课堂联系。橄榄狒狒提供了一个独特的机会来测试几个假设解决的表达胁迫与“友好”的相互作用方面的交配。 由于该物种中雄性的交配机会并不严格限于最高等级的个体，因此攻击性和友好性的方法都会发生，无论是不同的雄性，还是同一雄性在不同的时间，与不同的配偶。 然而，影响产生这些模式的相关雄性和雌性交配决定的条件目前尚不清楚。将从野生橄榄狒狒中收集系统的行为和激素数据，以测试两种公认的攻击策略是否是长期或短期有效的雄性策略。相应地，本研究将评估男性是否获得交配机会，通过对比策略的友好互动，以女性，无论是作为一个积极的社会关系的长期战略的一部分，或作为一个短期的策略。该项目还将记录女性的伤害和非侵入性测量应激激素，以评估男性策略对女性的生理反应和潜在成本。这个灵长类动物系统提供了一个有用的模型，用于测试这些表面上对立的策略集如何相互作用共同进化的一般原则。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Primates engage in a complex array of behavioral strategies during social interactions. This doctoral dissertation project will study the relative importance of friendly and aggressive behaviors and the broader contexts in which these behaviors occur during male-female interactions. The project will contribute to our understanding of the distribution of reproductive behaviors observed across the Primate Order. This project will contribute to the training of an undergraduate student in hormonal analysis techniques in the laboratory. The project will also contribute to conservation education programs and classroom connections between research site locations and the home institution. Olive baboons provide a unique opportunity to test several hypotheses addressing the expression of coercive versus "friendly" interactions with respect to mating. Because mating opportunities for males in this species are not strictly confined to the highest ranking individuals, both aggressive and friendly approaches occur, either by different males or even by the same males at different times, with different mates. However, the conditions influencing the relevant male and female mating decisions generating these patterns are currently unclear. Systematic behavioral and hormonal data will be collected from wild olive baboons to test whether two recognized aggressive tactics are effective male strategies in either the long-term or the short-term. Correspondingly, this research will evaluate whether males obtain mating opportunities through the contrasting strategy of friendly interaction to females, either as part of a long-term strategy of positive social affiliation or as a short-term tactic. This project also will record female injuries and non-invasively measure stress hormones to evaluate the physiological response and potential costs to females of male strategies. This primate system provides a useful model for testing general principles of how these ostensibly antithetical strategy sets interact co-evolutionarily.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.