Coordination Funds

长期以来，人们在人类和非人类灵长类动物中发现了社交和健康之间的密切联系。例如，在狒狒和人类中，社会关系良好的人都享有更长的寿命，而社会压力大或与世隔绝的人则遭受健康成本的影响。然而，调节这些积极影响(直接或缓冲)或消极影响的最近的机制在很大程度上仍然没有被探索。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、维持和生殖，在调节社交和健康之间的关系方面发挥重要作用。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的易感性，社会压力如何调节和调节这些联系，以及社会因素如何决定与健康相关的微生物在野生灵长类种群中的传播，仍然缺乏研究。灵长类社会制度的多样性为比较研究社会变量的影响提供了极好的机会，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的影响，包括应激激素水平、寄生虫负荷和生理动态平衡。传染病，包括性传播疾病，在社会单位内部和之间的传播是社会性与健康之间相互作用的一个重要应用方面。构成这一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，以处理上述关系，其基础是对野生狐猴和类人猿，包括大猩猩的协调研究。此外，这个研究组将以一种新颖的方式将灵长类野外工作与分子工作和理论建模结合起来，汇集来自各自国家英才中心的专家，包括许多年轻和女性科学家。最后，我们的目标是克服灵长类行为生态学和生物医学研究之间的传统分裂，通过在项目内部和项目之间建立密切的合作网络，并通过在一个新的和独特的项目中培训一批博士生。

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.