Collaborative Research on Population Differences in Vervet Monkey Life History

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，帕特里夏·惠顿和特鲁迪·特纳将调查肯尼亚黑尾猴种群分化的生活史。这项合作研究结合了遗传学、内分泌学、形态学、人口学和行为学的数据和专业知识。生活史分析将个体生命的事件和过程与种群和物种层面的人口统计学和进化事件联系起来。生长、成熟和衰老的时间对人口的行为、人口统计学和遗传结构有重要影响。本研究将利用一个独特的数据集，结合遗传、形态计量和社会生态信息，在四个生态不同的黑尾猴种群中调查这些影响。遗传亲缘关系将用8-10个多态微卫星位点进行评估。等位基因频率将用于确定群体和群体之间的迁移率和分化。父系和母系将通过检查个体之间的等位基因共享来确定。肾上腺激素和性腺激素的血清浓度将通过放射免疫测定法进行评估。内分泌数据将结合形态学数据来评估种群在成熟和衰老方面的差异。这些分析将用于解决以下几个问题：男性会迁移到有兄弟的部队吗？2. 当生活在竞争对手较多、遗传亲缘关系较低的群体中时，压力激素是否更高？3. 男性和女性的压力水平以及男性的父权关系会影响他们对后代的行为吗？4. 一个种群中成年体型的增加是由于该种群中男性和女性的成熟延迟和生长延长造成的吗？5. 在资源更丰富的人群中，个体是否成熟和衰老得更快？这项研究之所以重要，有几个原因。该数据集提供了一个机会，以获得一组生物的深入肖像，这是在动物研究中很少获得的，因为采样的动物数量和所检查的生物系统的范围。这些数据提供了种群水平现象与个体生理之间的联系，将为社会行为和生活史提供新的见解。在物种内部，生命史上的变异记录很少。更好地理解物种对当地条件的兼性适应和进化适应之间的平衡，可以增强我们对物种之间生活史差异的进化的理解。

With National Science Foundation support, Drs. Patricia Whitten and Trudy Turner will investigate the role of life history in divergence of populations of vervet monkeys in Kenya. This collaborative research combines data and expertise from genetics, endocrinology, morphology, demography and behavior. Life history analyses link the events and processes of an individual's life to demographic and evolutionary events at the population and species level. The timing of growth, maturation and aging have important consequences for behavior, demography and the genetic structure of populations. This research will investigate these effects using a unique data set combining genetic, morphometric and socioecological information in four ecologically distinct populations of vervet monkeys. Genetic relatedness will be assessed with 8-10 polymorphic microsatellite loci. Allele frequencies will be used to determine migration rates and differentiation among groups and populations. Paternity and maternity will be ascertained by examining allele sharing between individuals. Serum concentrations of adrenal and gonadal steroids will be assessed by radioimmunoassay. Endocrine data will be combined with morphological data to assess population differences in maturation and aging. These analyses will be used to address several questions: 1. Do males migrate to troops where they have brothers? 2. Are stress hormones higher when living in groups with more competitors and lower genetic relatedness? 3. Do stress levels in males and females and paternity in males affect behavior toward offspring? 4. Do increases in adult body size in a population result from delayed maturation and prolonged growth in males and females living in that population? 5. Do individuals in populations with richer resources mature and age more rapidly? This research is important for several reasons. The data set provides an opportunity to gain an in-depth portrait of a group of organisms that is rarely obtained in animal studies, because of both the number of animals sampled and the range of biological systems examined. These data provide a link between population level phenomena and individual physiology that will provide new insights into social behavior and life history. Within species variation in life history is poorly documented. A better understanding of the balance between facultative and evolutionary adaptations to local conditions within species can enhance our understanding of the evolution of life history differences across species.