Counter-Strategies against Infanticide by Males in Primates

雄性杀婴，即成年雄性以脆弱的婴儿为目标，攻击并杀死婴儿，发生在各种哺乳动物中，一个重要的研究机构调查了这些雄性如何从杀死婴儿中获益。然而，对其他三个人-母亲、婴儿和父亲-而言，杀害男性的代价是昂贵的，而对他们如何科普杀害男性的风险所知甚少。我以前曾研究过野生灵长类动物（黑疣猴和白色疣猴）中雌性动物抵抗或科普杀虫剂风险的策略。对婴儿和父亲的高风险的影响，以及他们如何制定策略来抵制杀虫剂，受到的研究关注要少得多。我的目标是继续测试假设有关的女性反策略杀死男性，并扩大调查，包括测试的假设有关的成本，和反策略，婴儿和父亲，与野生疣猴相同的人口。该种群种群密度高，雄虫交配竞争激烈，雄虫捕杀现象时有发生。个体经历不同程度的杀婴风险取决于他们所生活的群体，因为男性居民的父权概率与单一男性、一夫多妻制群体不同（高亲子鉴定概率），稳定的多男性，一雄多雄群（中等水平的父子关系概率）的群体，其中最近发生的接管和新的居民男性（S）没有交配的女性在怀孕的时间（低概率）。这些条件（高人口密度，高雄性交配竞争，不同的杀虫剂风险取决于社会群体）创造了一个理想的情况下，收集必要的数据来测试研究假设。我和我的学生将进行一些研究来检验以下假设：在高杀婴风险的条件下，母亲会突然给婴儿断奶，并与几个男性交配以分散父子关系的可能性;仍然在高杀婴风险的条件下，婴儿的发育将加速，这种更快的婴儿发育将转化为更早的营养独立;父亲对婴儿的耐受性受亲子关系的影响，并与婴儿死亡风险水平相关。已经进行了相当多的研究，以了解发生雄性杀蝗的条件，以及了解杀蝗雄性如何从这种行为的表达中获益。这项研究有助于我们了解这场进化军备竞赛的另一面，评估母亲、婴儿和父亲（对他们来说，杀男性生殖器是昂贵的）科普杀男性生殖器威胁的策略。

Infanticide by males, where adult males target, attack and kill vulnerable infants, occurs in a wide range of mammals, and an important body of research investigates how these males gain from killing infants. Male infanticide is costly, however, for three other individuals - the mother, the infant and the father and much less is known about how they cope with the risk of infanticide. I have previously investigated the tactics used by females to resist or cope with infanticide risk in a wild primate species (the black and white colobus). The impact of high infanticide risk on infants and fathers, and how they might develop tactics to resist infanticide, has received much less research attention. My objective is to continue to test hypotheses related to female counterstrategies infanticide by males, and to extend the investigation to include the testing of hypotheses related to the costs to, and counter-strategies employed by, infants and fathers, with the same population of wild colobus monkeys. This population has high population density and intense male mating competition, and infanticide by males occurs regularly. Individuals experience varying levels of infanticide risk depending on the group in which they live, since paternity probability for resident male(s) varies from uni-male, polygynous groups (high paternity probability), stable multi-male, polygynandrous groups (moderate level of paternity probability) to groups where a recent takeover occurred and where the new resident male(s) did not mate with the females around the time of conception (low paternity probability). These conditions (high population density, high male mating competition, varying infanticide risk depending on the social groups) create an ideal situation in which to collect the data necessary to test the research hypotheses. My students and I will conduct a number of studies to test the following hypotheses: Under high infanticide risk conditions, mothers will wean their infant abruptly, and will mate with several males to spread paternity probabilities; still under high infanticide risk conditions, infant development will be accelerated and this faster infant development will translate into earlier nutritional independence; and fathers' tolerance of infants will be influenced by paternity and will co-vary with the level of infanticide risk. Considerable research has been conducted to understand the conditions under which male infanticide occurs, as well as to understand how infanticidal males might gain from the expression of this behaviour. This study contributes to our understanding of the other side of this evolutionary arms race, in assessing the strategies used by mothers, infants and fathers - for whom male infanticide is costly - to cope with the threat of male infanticide.