LTREB: Long-term behavioral and genetic analyses of a wild primate population

这项研究的长期目标是全面了解行为如何影响一种野生哺乳动物的种群动态和个体生活史结果，这一种群是东非安博塞利盆地的稀树大草原狒狒。总体概念框架关注的是行为如何影响一生的生存和生殖，以及行为如何影响生理学和种群遗传学。在他们的长期工作中，调查人员专注于一系列短期目标，这些目标代表了他们长期目标的组成部分。通过这个LTREB项目，他们公开地朝着一个更长期的目标前进。具体地说，他们将跟踪一个主要是黄狒狒的研究种群和邻近的阿努比斯(橄榄)狒狒种群(一个单独的亚种)之间正在进行的遗传混合(杂交)过程，以了解行为影响的方式，并反过来受到杂交的影响。他们之前的研究记录了杂交狒狒和黄狒狒之间相当戏剧性的差异。这代表着一个独特的机会，可以跟踪种群随时间推移的自然过程，并测试关于其行为原因和后果的假设。这个项目与理解物种形成有关，因为杂交可以在物种形成中发挥作用。这也与理解人类进化有关，因为狒狒和人类在生态上有着密切的相似之处，而且非洲的狒狒辐射与各种人类物种的进化史之间也有相似之处。拟议中的项目将延续研究人员培训美国和肯尼亚学生的悠久历史，这些活动与研究目标密切相关。近期研教融合重点培养博士后13人，博士生12人，硕士生5人，本科生34人，高中生2人。调查人员还积极与肯尼亚科学家合作，并与他们合作进行国内能力建设。

The long-term objective in this study is to develop a comprehensive picture of how behavior shapes population dynamics and individual life history outcomes in one population of wild mammals, the savanna baboons of the Amboseli basin in east Africa. The overall conceptual framework is concerned with how behavior affects survival and reproduction across the life time, as well as how behavior affects physiology and population genetics. Throughout their long-term work, the investigators have focused on a series of short-term goals that represent components of their long-term objective. With this LTREB project they overtly reach toward one longer-term goal. Specifically, they will follow the ongoing process of genetic admixture (hybridization) between a study population of primarily yellow baboons and neighboring populations of anubis (olive) baboons (a separate subspecies) in order to understand the way in which behavior impacts, and is in turn affected by hybridization. Their previous work has documented rather dramatic differences between hybrid and yellow baboons. This represents a unique opportunity to follow a natural process of population admixture over time, and to test hypotheses about its behavioral causes and consequences. This project is relevant to understanding speciation because of the role that hybridization can play in speciation. It is also relevant to understanding human evolution because of the close ecological parallels between baboons and humans, and the similarity between the baboon radiation in Africa and the evolutionary history of various human species. The proposed project will continue the investigators' long history of training American and Kenyan students, activities that are intimately connected with the research goals. Recent integration of research and education has focused on training for 13 post-doctoral fellows, 12 doctoral candidates, 5 Master's Degree students, 34 undergraduates, and 2 high school students. The investigators also actively collaborate with Kenyan scientists and are working with them on in-country capacity building.