IRES Track I: Research opportunities in behavioral and ecological data collection at the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project, Kenya.

这一国际学生研究体验(IRES)项目将邀请四名美国本科生和一名美国研究生在肯尼亚的Uaso NGiro Bobon项目(UNBP)进行为期8周的野生橄榄狒狒(P.Anubis)的研究。在那里，参与的学生将从UNBP的高级研究人员那里学习行为和生态数据收集的方法，他们还将有机会根据自己的兴趣在狒狒行为和生态的广泛主题内开发自己的研究项目。这一经历将使参与的学生受益，他们将接受行为和生态数据收集方法的培训，并让他们有机会在国外进行实地考察，这将极大地增加他们在与动物行为和生态监测相关的领域从事研究生或专业职业生涯的可能性。作为我们现存的近亲，其他灵长类动物是理解我们自己物种进化的最常见的模型。特别是，橄榄狒狒是一种高度智能、社会复杂性和行为灵活的动物，它们生活在与我们自己物种可能进化的生态环境相似的生态环境中。UNBP收集的长期数据追踪了这些动物在行为和生理上如何适应快速变化的人类环境，揭示了生态和行为之间的复杂相互作用，并有助于我们理解类似的过程可能如何影响人类进化。通过这个研究所，新一代研究人员将在UNBP开发他们自己的研究项目，受益于经验丰富的狒狒研究人员的指导和本网站数十年的数据。参与的学生收集的数据不仅将增加我们对狒狒行为和生态的知识，还将为旨在改善人与野生动物冲突和环境管理战略的保护实践提供广泛的信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) project will engage four U.S. undergraduates and one U.S. graduate student in the study of wild olive baboons (P. anubis) at the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project (UNBP) in Kenya for 8 weeks during the summer. There, participating students will learn the methods of behavioral and ecological data collection from senior UNBP researchers, and they will also have the opportunity to develop their own research projects based on their interests within the broad topics of baboon behavior and ecology. This experience will benefit the participating students by training them in behavioral and ecological data collection methods and by giving them the opportunity to conduct fieldwork in a foreign country, which will greatly increase their likelihood to succeed when pursuing graduate or professional careers in fields related to animal behavior and ecological monitoring.As our closest living relatives, other primates are the most common models for understanding the evolution of our own species. In particular, olive baboons are highly intelligent, socially complex, and behaviorally flexible animals that live in an ecological context similar to that in which our own species likely evolved. The long-term data collected at the UNBP have tracked the ways in which these animals can adapt – both behaviorally and physiologically – to a rapidly changing anthropogenic environment, shedding light on the complex interactions between ecology and behavior and contributing to our understanding of how similar processes may have influenced human evolution. Through this IRES, a new generation of researchers will develop their own research projects at the UNBP, benefitting both from the mentorship of experienced baboon researchers and from the decades of data available at this site. The data collected by participating students will not only increase our knowledge of baboon behavior and ecology, but also broadly inform conservation practices that aim to ameliorate human-wildlife conflict and environmental management strategies.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.