Long Term Studies of African Lions

合作在动物中是罕见的，但在非洲狮等物种中，合作渗透到它们生活的方方面面。只有当动物与近亲持续交往，或者社会互动对每个参与者都有利时，合作才会发生。因此，要充分理解合作的进化，就需要了解合作产生的确切方式、不同亲缘关系的伙伴之间合作行为的分布，以及这种合作对参与者终生生殖成功的影响。狮子的许多不同的合作行为可以通过播放入侵者在其领地上的吼声来激发。在接下来的三年里，调查人员将进行回放，在同伴可以看到个体合作意愿的地方，以及在同伴看不到个体行为的地方。还将在自然条件下研究其他几种合作形式。这些狮子合作行为的后果可以从22年的人口统计数据中估计出来。这些研究为了解动物如何进化出复杂的合作行为形式提供了一个独特的机会。长期的人口统计数据也将用于开发狮子种群动态的详细模型。这些将被用来模拟不同规模的种群的命运，并计算人类干扰对自然种群的潜在影响。

Cooperation is rare in animals, yet in species such as the African lion cooperation permeates all aspects of their lives. Cooperation is only expected to occur where animals associate persistently with their close kin, or where social interactions result in mutual benefit to each participant. Gaining a full understanding of the evolution of cooperation therefore requires information on the precise ways that cooperation is elicited, the distribution of cooperative acts among companions of varying degrees of kinship and the effects of such cooperation on the participants' lifetime reproductive success. Many different kinds of cooperative behavior in lions can be elicited by playing the recorded roars of intruders in their territories. In the next three years the investigators will perform playbacks both where the willingness of an individual to cooperate is visible to its companions and where its behavior would be unseen. Several other forms of cooperation will also be investigated under natural conditions. The consequences of cooperative behavior in these lions can be estimated from the 22 years of demographic data available on the study populations. These studies provide a unique opportunity to learn how animals have evolved complex forms of cooperative behavior. The long term demographic data will also be used to develop detailed models of lion population dynamics. These will be used to simulate the fates of populations of varying sizes and to calculate the potential impact of human disturbances on natural populations.