Group Fission as a Tool to Examine Within-and Between Group Competition in a Leaf-Eating Monkey and Quantify 50+ Years of Changes in a Tropical Forest

我的长期目标是在行为和生态学的界面上工作，以发展关于（1）食叶猴（食叶动物）的社会组织的生态决定因素的一般原则。我将建立在我的营养需求，疾病和植物生态学在基巴莱国家公园，乌干达26年的研究，利用我的永久研究组分裂成两个组（n=~150去年，所有成年人单独知道），以解决一系列的预测有关内和组间竞争的食叶动物。为了做到这一点，我将使用一些先进的方法，如测量应激激素和确定营养与近红外反射光谱。(2)这也将涉及我在乌干达基巴莱国家公园的长期实地工作，在那里我将量化森林组成的变化，检查一些涉及这种变化可能驱动因素的具体预测（例如，继承，气候变化，大象数量的变化），并更好地了解其对灵长类动物丰度的影响（在这项研究结束时，包括汤姆·斯特鲁萨克的数据，我将有51年的数据）。 我的所有学生，从本科生到博士后，都可以使用这个数据集来撰写论文并接受指导。 *** 我的研究将1）有助于我们对食叶动物丰度和社会组织的生态决定因素的基本理解，2）提供我们认为是非洲森林生态过程的最长数据集，3）继续促进强有力的国际交流和学生/博士后培训，4）提供构建知情保护策略所必需的信息，最后，5）有一个强大的外展部分，这是我过去在接受CBC等电视台采访和与国家地理合作时所做的。*****

My long-term goal is to work at the interface of behaviour and ecology to develop general principles concerning ecological determinants of (1) the social organization of leaf-eating monkeys (folivores). I will build upon my 26 years of research on the nutritional requirements, disease, and plant ecology in Kibale National Park, Uganda to take advantage of the fission of my permanent study group into two groups (n=~150 last year, all adults known individually) to address a series of predictions concerning within- and between-group competition in a folivore. To do this I will use a number of advanced approaches such as measuring stress hormones and determining nutrition with near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy. (2) This will also involve continued work at my long-term field site in Kibale National Park, Uganda, where I will quantify changes in forest composition, examine a number of specific predictions involving possible drivers of this change (e.g., succession, climate change, changing elephant numbers), and better understand its influence on primate abundance (at the end of this study, and including Tom Struhsaker's data, I will have 51 years of data). This data set is available to all of my students, from undergrads to post-docs, to write papers from and receive guidance. *** My research will 1) contribute to our fundamental understanding of ecological determinants of folivore abundance and social organizations, 2) provide, what we believe is the longest data set of ecological processes from an African forest, 3) continue to promote strong international exchange and student/post-doc training, 4) provide information that is vitally needed to construct informed conservation strategies, and finally 5) have a strong outreach component, which I have done in the past with interviews with TV stations such as CBC and work with National Geographic. *****