Physiology and Behavior of Maturation in Wild Baboons

描述(申请人提供)：社会互动和环境 越来越多的人认识到对生殖的潜在重要影响 功能、健康和幸福。尽管数据不可用于 男童生殖成熟及社会因素对初潮时间的影响 女孩们。根据情况的不同，青春期提前可能是一种优势，也可能是 有损于个人的社会和身体发展或其 终生生存和繁衍。拟议的试验性研究将提供一个 第一次对潜在的生理机制进行了研究 青春期时间和青春期长度的个体间差异 非人灵长类野生种群的青春期 对这些机制的社会影响。我们将调查一项 行为和社会因素的子集与成熟度相关 测量和可检测到的生理学之间的时间关系是什么 和行为上的差异。我们的目标是确定在多大程度上 幼虫和幼虫之间的优势地位和攻击性/顺从性交互作用 青少年与成人的社会互动预测生理模式 男性和女性的青春期、成熟期和成人级成就。我们 假设这种关系是通过下丘脑- 垂体-性腺(HPG)和HP-肾上腺(HPA)轴。社会环境将是 以支配地位和特定行为的可变性为特征的 决定等级，例如空间位移、攻击性和 呈件。我们将测量粪便中雌激素的浓度， 睾酮、糖皮质激素及其与行为表现的相关性 在青春期到青春期和青春期到青春期的过渡期间 男性和女性的成年期。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Social interactions and environment are increasingly recognized as potentially important influences on reproductive function, health, and well-being. Although data are not available for reproductive maturation in boys, social factors influence time of menarche in girls. Depending on circumstances, early puberty may be either an asset or detriment to the social and physical development of the individual or to its lifetime survival and reproduction. The proposed pilot research will provide a first investigation into the physiological mechanisms underlying inter-individual variability in the timing of puberty and the length of adolescence in a wild population of non-human primates and into some of the social impacts on these mechanisms. We shall investigate the extent to which a sub-set of behavioral and social factors is correlated with maturational measures and what the temporal relationship is between detectable physiological and behavioral differences. Our aim is to determine the extent to which dominance status and aggressive/submissive interactions among juveniles and the juveniles' social interactions with adults predict physiological patterns of puberty, maturation, and adult rank attainment in males and females. We hypothesize that this relationship is mediated via the hypothalamic- pituitary-gonadal (HPG) and HP-adrenal (HPA) axes. Social environment will be characterized by dominance rank and by variability in the specific behaviors that determine rank, such as, spatial displacements, aggression, and submission. We will measure fecal hormone concentrations of estrogens, testosterone, and glucocorticoids and correlate these with behaviors exhibited during the transition between juvenescence to adolescence and adolescence to adulthood in males and females.