Doctoral Dissertation Research: Cognitive ecology of a nocturnal primate and its implications for primate cognitive evolution

灵长类动物，如猿和猴子，以其不同寻常的大脑大小和认知复杂性而闻名。然而，这些特殊的特征是否在灵长类动物多样性的整个谱系中进化还不确定。为了更好地理解灵长类动物复杂智力的进化，需要比较数据。为了达到这个目的，本博士论文研究项目考察了一个未被充分研究的古代灵长类谱系的生态学、社会性和认知行为。研究结果可以为了解灵长类动物的认知复杂性是如何进化的提供关键见解。该项目支持学生研究人员的指导和国际研究合作。它还涉及跨学科的合作，整合了生物人类学和机电工程的思想，以开发新的远程生物学技术。这种合作可以促进未来收集许多小型夜行动物的空间和运动数据，而这类数据在传统上是无法获得的。这个项目的目标是在野生的夜行性链鼻河灵长类动物——厚尾加拉戈斯种群中确定生态和社会相关的认知适应，以确定与白天群居的灵长类动物相比，社会生态压力如何塑造夜行性链鼻河灵长类动物的认知进化模式。研究人员利用人工行为观察、新发展的生物学技术、发声回放实验、野外适应认知测试和比较统计分析等方法，收集和分析了厚尾加拉戈斯的相关认知和行为数据。如果在加拉戈斯谱系中观察到与群居、昼夜活动的灵长类谱系相似的认知能力，那么可能存在一种保存下来的进化蓝图，即在加拉戈斯分化之前，特定的社会生态条件选择了灵长类动物的特殊认知适应能力。比较厚尾加拉戈斯和其他具有相似社会生态特征的灵长类动物之间的认知适应，有助于确定特定的社会生态压力如何影响灵长类动物的认知进化，并有助于确定人类认知能力的最终进化起源。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

Primates such as apes and monkeys are known for their unusual brain size and cognitive complexity. However, there is uncertainty about whether these exceptional traits have evolved across the entire spectrum of primate diversity. To better understand the evolution of complex intelligence in primates requires comparative data. Towards that end, this doctoral dissertation research project examines the ecology, sociality, and cognitive behavior of an understudied ancient primate lineage. Results can provide key insights into how cognitive complexity has evolved in primates. The project supports mentorship of student researchers and international research collaborations. It also involves an interdisciplinary collaboration that integrates ideas from biological anthropology and electromechanical engineering to develop novel remote biologging technologies. This collaboration can facilitate the future collection of spatial and movement data on many smaller-bodied nocturnal species for which this type of data has been traditionally unattainable.The goal of this project is to identify ecologically and socially relevant cognitive adaptations in a wild population of nocturnal strepsirrhine primates, thick-tailed galagos, to determine how socioecological pressures shape patterns of cognitive evolution in nocturnal strepsirrhine primates compared to diurnal gregarious primates. The researchers utilize manual behavioral observation, newly developed biologging technology, vocalization playback experiments, field-adapted cognitive tests, and comparative statistical analysis to collect and analyze relevant cognitive and behavioral data on thick-tailed galagos. If similar cognitive abilities are observed in the galago lineage as in gregarious, diurnal primate lineages, then there may be a preserved evolutionary blueprint of specific socioecological conditions selecting for specialized sets of cognitive adaptations in primates that predates the divergence of the galagos. Comparing cognitive adaptations between thick-tailed galagos and other primates presenting similar socioecological traits can help determine how specific socioecological pressures affect primate cognitive evolution across taxa and help contextualize the ultimate evolutionary origins of human cognitive abilities.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.