Life-history and behavioral consequences of competition between solitary and pair-bonded primate conspecifics

建立、发展和维持社会关系的能力对包括人类在内的许多物种都很重要。社会联系对健康、死亡率和生殖有积极影响。在这个项目中，研究人员将研究可能有助于个人建立成功的社会关系的行为，人口统计和遗传因素。研究人员将重点放在一个非人类灵长类动物模型上，在这个模型中，父亲和母亲都为他们的孩子提供照顾，研究人员将研究繁殖的成对结合成年人和孤独的非繁殖成年人之间的相互作用。这项研究将有助于更好地了解社会关系，包括交配和养育关系，在成对生活，一夫一妻制的群体。该团队将培养9名本科生，2名博士生。学生和一名博士后研究员来自STEM领域代表性不足的群体。将加强与阿根廷研究人员的国际合作，研究人员将扩大努力，促进拉丁美洲生物人类学学科的发展。在国家一级，外联活动将包括与涉及代表性不足的少数民族高中和本科生的研究项目（耶鲁皮博迪博物馆的STARS项目）合作，并根据他们在动物行为和生物人类学课程中经常涉及的主题的工作创建一系列公开演讲。这个研究项目发生在阿根廷的猫头鹰猴子项目，一个国际研究计划，以推进知识和理论的演变对结合，一夫一妻制，和父亲的照顾。在这项新研究中，一个由研究人员、本科生、研究生和博士后组成的团队将收集60组猫头鹰猴个体的人口统计学和遗传数据。研究人员将研究那些离开纳塔尔群体但尚未配对的孤独个体，以及配对的成年人。独居的个体需要进入群体进行繁殖，这就产生了独居和成对结合的成年个体之间的激烈竞争。作为该项目的一部分，收集的数据将被用来评估如何之间的竞争孤立的飞蚊症和成对的成年人影响婴儿的发育和生存，纳塔尔分散模式，对债券的形成和稳定性，以及交配模式。此外，由于这种灵长类动物在雄性和雌性之间表现出非常小的身体差异，但两性之间存在激烈的竞争，因此这些数据对于理解性别特异性形态和行为的进化将是有价值的。因此，该项目将对生物人类学和进化生物学的核心概念做出理论和经验贡献。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

The ability to establish, develop, and maintain social relationships is important in many species, including humans. There are positive effects of social bonds on health, mortality, and reproduction. In this project, the researchers will examine behavioral, demographic and genetic factors that may contribute to the ability of an individual to establish successful social relationships. Focusing on a non-human primate model in which both father and mother provide care to their young, the researchers will study interactions between reproducing pair-bonded adults and solitary non-reproducing ones. This research will contribute to a better understanding of social relationships, including mating and parenting relationships, in pair-living, monogamous groups. The team will train nine undergraduate students, two Ph.D. students and one postdoctoral researcher from groups underrepresented in STEM fields. International collaborations with researchers in Argentina will be strengthened, and the investigators will expand efforts to foster the development of the biological anthropology discipline in Latin America. At the national level, outreach activities will include working with programs involving underrepresented minority high-school and undergraduate students in research (STARS program at the Yale Peabody Museum) and creating a public series of presentations based on their work for topics regularly covered in animal behavior and biological anthropology courses. This research project occurs within the Owl Monkey Project of Argentina, an international research program to advance knowledge and theory about the evolution of pair-bonding, monogamy, and paternal care. In this new study, a team of researchers, undergraduate students, graduate students and postdocs will collect demographic and genetic data from individuals in 60 groups of owl monkeys. The investigators will study solitary individuals who have left their natal group but have not yet pair-bonded, as well as pair-bonded adults. The solitary individuals need to enter a group to reproduce, which generates intense competition between solitary and pair-bonded adults. Data collected as part of this project will be used to evaluate how competition between solitary floaters and pair-bonded adults influences infant development and survival, natal dispersal patterns, pair-bond formation and stability, and mating patterns. In addition, because this primate species shows very little physical difference between males and females, but intense competition in both sexes, these data will be valuable for understanding the evolution of sex-specific morphologies and behaviors. The project will therefore make theoretical and empirical contributions to a number of concepts that are central to biological anthropology and evolutionary biology.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.