Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Evolution of the Reproductive System in Strepsirrhine Primates

生殖是每一种生物存在的中心，生殖生物学长期以来一直是灵长类动物学的中心问题。特别令人感兴趣的是对狐猴和懒猴的生殖研究。狐猴是一种高度濒危的灵长类辐射，仅限于马达加斯加岛，而懒猴是它们的非洲近亲，研究得不多。这项研究将分析狐猴和懒猴在解剖、行为和生理上的许多差异，以及影响这些差异的社会和生态特征。拟议的研究将涉及对理解灵长类生物学和进化具有重要意义的三个主要主题：(1)生殖系统的比较解剖学，(2)生殖系统的进化变化，(3)进化速度。这项研究中产生的解剖学、行为学和生态学特征将被用来测试有关生殖系统的功能和进化假说，这些假说无法用现有数据进行检验。关于狐猴和懒猴的24个物种和众多亚种的新的解剖学描述和照片将被出版，这构成了我们对它们的解剖学知识的重大进步。这项拟议的研究在许多方面都有深远的影响。它涉及来自美国和马达加斯加的科学家之间的国际合作研究，将导致对美国研究生和本科生(包括女性和少数民族)以及马达加斯加学生的培训。这项关于灵长类繁殖进化的研究结果将对保护野生濒危物种以及维持圈养群体具有重要意义，这些群体涉及广泛的基础和生物医学研究。这项研究的结果将立即纳入美国和马达加斯加的教育项目，以及杜克大学灵长类中心的广泛推广项目。由于这项研究涉及有吸引力的濒危物种，这项工作的结果可能会引起相当大的公众兴趣，并将达到广泛的公众受众。

Reproduction is central to the existence of every organism, and reproductive biology has long been a central issue in primatology. Of particular interest is the study of reproduction in lemurs, a highly endangered primate radiation confined to the island of Madagascar, and lorises, their understudied African relatives. This study will analyze the many anatomical, behavioral, and physiological differences among lemurs and lorises and the social and ecological traits that influence these differences. The proposed research will address three major topics of great significance to understanding primate biology and evolution: (1) comparative anatomy of the reproductive system, (2) evolutionary changes in the reproductive system, and (3) rates of evolution. The anatomical, behavioral, and ecological characters generated in this study will be used to test functional and evolutionary hypotheses about the reproductive system that could not be tested with existing data. New anatomical descriptions and photographs will be published for 24 species and numerous subspecies of lemur and loris, constituting a major advance in our knowledge of their anatomy. The proposed research has far-reaching impact on many fronts. It involves international, collaborative research between scientists from America and Madagascar that will result in the training of American graduate students and undergraduate students (including females and minorities) as well as students in Madagascar. The results of this study of the evolution of primate reproduction will be of major importance both for the conservation of endangered species in the wild as well as the maintenance of captive colonies involved in a wide range of both basic and biomedical research. The results of this study will be incorporated immediately into educational programs both in the USA and in Madagascar as well as the extensive outreach programs at Duke University Primate Center. Because this research involves attractive and endangered species, the results of this work are likely to be of considerable public interest and will reach a broad public audience.