Doctoral Dissertation Research: Behavioral flexibility and space use in nonhuman primates

博士论文研究：非人类灵长类动物的行为灵活性和空间利用

• 批准号: 2316432
• 负责人: Crickette Sanz
• 金额: $ 3.14万
• 依托单位: Washington University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-08-01 至 2024-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2316432&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Behavioral; flexibility

Behavioral flexibility, or the ability to change one’s behavior in different contexts, is a key human trait, but how this trait emerged in our lineage is less understood. Research shows that non-human primates show more behavioral flexibility than previously assumed. One way to approach the question of the emergence and nature of human behavioral flexibility is through a comparative study of how spaces are used, as representations of the range of behavioral decisions shown among our close nonhuman primate relatives. In particular, understanding the capability of different primates to modify their behavior in response to the fluctuating availability of food resources or changes in social relationships has the potential to provide valuable insights into promotes behavioral variation among primates, the importance of such variability in human evolution, and the behavioral capabilities of our human ancestors. This doctoral dissertation research project examines space use strategies of wild groups of a close human relative, to investigate how natural variation in food availability and changes in social dynamics can explain differences in space use. This project contributes to the training of graduate and undergraduate students as well as primate conservation.This study uses home range specific resource availability collected across the home ranges of five nonhuman primate groups, all occurrences of interactions between them, and daily follows of focal individuals to document initiations of group movements within their home ranges. These data are used to address three main questions: what differences in home range specific resource access promotes variation in space use strategies, whether differences in ranging overlap is linked to differences in social relationships between groups, and whether differences in group size and leadership influence group movement decisions. In addition to addressing the growing demand for investigations into behavioral variation from both anthropology and cognitive sciences, this research implements new technological approaches in data collection and analyses. A combination of spatially explicit resource modelling, social network analyses, and group-level comparisons are used to evaluate flexibility in primate space use strategies. This research not only addresses long-standing questions on the evolution of behavioral variation but can also be used to inform conservation strategies aimed at protecting non-human primates across the world.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.

行为灵活性或在不同情况下改变人行为的能力是人类的关键特征，但是对我们的血统中的这种特征如何不了解。研究表明，非人类私人的行为灵活性比以前假设的更多。解决人类行为灵活性的出现和性质问题的一种方法是，通过对使用空间的使用方式进行比较研究，作为我们亲密的非人类灵长类动物亲戚中所示的一系列行为决策的表示。特别是，了解不同隐私在响应粮食资源的波动或社会关系变化而修改其行为的能力有可能为促进灵长类动物之间的行为差​​异，人类进化中这种可变性的重要性以及我们人类祖先的行为能力提供宝贵的见解。这项博士学位论文研究项目考试空间使用了亲密亲戚的野生群体的策略，以研究食物可用性的自然变化和社会动态变化如何解释太空使用的差异。该项目有助于培训研究生和本科生以及私人保护。这项研究使用了家庭范围的特定资源可用性，这些资源的可用性在五个非人类灵长类动物群体中收集的特定资源可用性，这都是他们之间的相互作用的发生，以及重点个人的日常追随者来记录其家庭运动范围内群体运动的计划。这些数据用于解决三个主要问题：家庭范围在特定资源访问中的差异会促进空间使用策略的差异，范围重叠的差异是否与群体之间的社会关系差异有关，群体规模和领导力的差异是否影响组运动决策。除了解决人类学和认知科学对行为差异的投资需求不断增长外，该研究还实施了数据收集和分析中的新技术方法。使用空间显式资源建模，社交网络分析和组级比较的组合用于评估私人空间使用策略的灵活性。这项研究不仅解决了有关行为变化发展的长期问题，还可以用来为旨在保护全球保护非人类灵长类动物的保护策略提供信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的审查标准来评估，通过评估来诚实地支持支持。