Coordination Funds

在人类和非人类灵长类动物中，社会性和适应性之间的紧密联系早已被发现。例如，狒狒和人类一样，社会关系良好的个体寿命更长，而社会压力大或孤立的个体则要承受健康成本。然而，介导这些积极（直接或缓冲）或消极影响的近似机制在很大程度上仍未被探索。临床研究表明，健康和条件可能通过影响能量如何分配给生存、维持和繁殖，在社会性和适应性之间的关系中发挥重要作用。然而，社会因素的相对重要性，社会角色和网络究竟如何影响疾病易感性，社会压力如何介导和调节这些联系，以及社会因素如何决定健康相关微生物的传播，在野生灵长类动物种群中仍未得到充分研究。灵长类社会系统的多样性为比较研究社会变量（如群体规模、优势等级、社会支持和交配策略）对健康和身体状况的各个方面和指标（包括应激激素水平、寄生虫负荷和生理稳态）的影响提供了极好的机会。包括性传播疾病在内的传染病在社会单位内部和社会单位之间的传播是社会与卫生之间相互作用的一个重要应用方面。组成该研究单位组成部分的各个项目将产生一个全面的比较数据集，以在对野生狐猴和类人猿（包括类人猿）进行协调研究的基础上解决上述关系。此外，该研究单位将把灵长类动物的实地研究与分子工作和理论建模结合起来，以一种新颖的方式汇集来自各自国家卓越中心的专家，包括许多年轻和女性科学家。最后，我们的目标是通过在项目内部和项目之间建立紧密的合作网络，以及在一个新的和独特的项目中培养一批博士生，来克服灵长类动物行为生态学和生物医学研究之间的传统分裂。

Strong links between sociality and fitness have long been identified in humans and non-human primates. For example, in baboons and humans alike, socially well-connected individuals enjoy substantially greater longevity, whereas socially stressed or isolated individuals suffer fitness costs. However, the proximate mechanisms mediating these positive (direct or buffering) or negative effects remain largely unexplored. Clinical studies indicate that health and condition may play important roles in mediating this relationship between sociality and fitness by influencing how energy is allocated to survival, maintenance and reproduction. However, the relative importance of social factors, how exactly social roles and networks affect susceptibility to disease, how social stress mediates and modulates these links, and how social factors determine the transmission of health-relevant micro-organisms remains poorly studied in wild primate populations. The diversity of primate social systems provides excellent opportunities for comparative studies of the effects of social variables, such as group size, dominance rank, social support and mating tactics on various aspects and indicators of health and physical condition, including levels of stress hormones, parasite load and physiological homeostasis. The transmission of infectious diseases, including sexually-transmitted diseases, within and among social units is an important applied aspect of the interactions between sociality and health. The individual projects comprising the building blocks of this Research Unit will yield a comprehensive comparative data set to address the above relationships based on coordinated research on wild lemurs and anthropoids, including Great Apes. Moreover, this Research Unit will combine primate fieldwork with molecular work and theoretical modeling in a novel way by bringing together experts from the respective national centers of excellence, including many young and female scientists. Finally, we aim to overcome the traditional fragmentation between primate behavioral ecology and biomedical research by generating a close network of collaborations within and between projects and by training a cohort of PhD students in a new and unique program.