Maternally mediated effects of early-life adversity on offspring trajectories in mandrills

雌性哺乳动物承担了大部分的繁殖成本，因为它们在妊娠和哺乳期的独家投资以及它们通常更高的父母投资。然而，母亲在许多影响婴儿发育和健康的特征上存在差异。在这种情况下，特别感兴趣的是最近的研究报告的负面影响，母亲的早期生活逆境对自己的后代，但这些代际母亲的影响到目前为止只详细狒狒和初步结果，从其他几项研究产生了异质性的结果。在这个项目中，我们将测试两组问题的预测，在一组Mandrillus狮身人面像（Mandrillus sphinx）约300个单独已知的成员，以阐明这种代际传递的细节：1）什么是母亲经历的不利的早期生活的影响，以及母亲的条件，压力，经验和排名在产生个体间的差异，在产妇护理和风格的相对重要性？2)母亲的照顾方式和方式的变化对后代的社会和身体发育以及健康决定因素有什么影响？为了解决这些问题，我将把联合收割机行为观察与人口统计、生理和气候数据结合起来，其中大部分已经作为这个长期项目的常规数据收集的一部分。在未来几年的其他数据将作为博士项目的一部分收集。这个项目将产生重要的比较数据和新的见解的原因和后果的变化，在孕产妇护理，应该远远超出动物行为领域的兴趣。

Female mammals bear the bulk of the costs of reproduction because of their exclusive investment in gestation and lactation as well as their typically much higher parental investment. However, mothers differ in many traits that are known to affect infant development and fitness. Of particular interest in this context are recent studies reporting negative effects of maternal early-life adversities for their own offspring, but these inter-generational maternal effects have so far only been detailed in baboons and preliminary results from a few other studies yielded heterogeneous results. In this project, we will test predictions of two sets of questions in a group of mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) with about 300 individually known members to illuminate details of this inter-generational transmission: 1) What is the relative importance of adverse early-life effects experienced by mothers as well as maternal condition, stress, experience and rank in generating interindividual variation in maternal care and style? 2) What are the consequences of variation in maternal care and style for the social and physical development as well as the fitness determinants of their offspring? To address these questions, I will combine behavioral observations with demographic, physiological and climate data, the bulk of which is already available as part of routine data collection in this long-term project. Additional data during the upcoming years will be collected as part of a PhD project. This project will yield important comparative data and new insights into the causes and consequences of variation in maternal care that should be of interest far beyond the field of animal behavior.