Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Modeling the Origins of Primate Sociality: Do Mouse Lemurs Recognize Kin Through Vocalizations?

人类独特性的论点强调我们复杂的社会性、不寻常的认知能力和语言技能，但这些能力的起源时间及其进化原因仍未得到解决。与大部分独居的祖先哺乳动物不同，最早的灵长类动物被认为保持着社会网络，通过发声和气味标记进行交流。这些网络可能通过为亲缘选择（由有利于亲缘的行为引起的选择）提供媒介，在灵长类动物出现时促进了增强认知和交流能力的选择。不幸的是，灵长类祖先识别亲属的机制尚不清楚。这项研究将是首次在一种用于模拟灵长类祖先——灰鼠狐猴——的物种中测试亲属的声音识别。创新、复杂的方法包括用应答器给野生狐猴做标记，并在装有应答器读取器的喂食平台上进行回放实验。就知识价值而言，这个项目是多学科的，包括社会生态学，人类学，生物声学，保护和现场方法论。该项目将对灵长类起源的重建具有重要的理论价值，并将研究开发利用发声来监测小型夜行哺乳动物亲缘群体的新型保护工具的可行性。更广泛的影响是在保护、教育和国际合作方面。这些狐猴很脆弱，不仅因为自人类到来以来，马达加斯加的森林退化率估计超过了90%，还因为人们对它们没有很好的了解。增加对它们社会系统的了解将有助于根据它们的需要制定保护计划。她将通过创建一个网页将这个项目整合到科学教育中，这样她的NSF GK-12学生就可以跟踪研究的进展。该项目将在德国、马达加斯加和美国的研究人员之间开展新的合作。它将培训一名现场助理和一名马达加斯加学生，让他们掌握从事研究、保护或公园管理工作的关键技能。

Arguments of human uniqueness emphasize our complex sociality, unusual cognitive capacities, and language skills, but the timing of the origin of these abilities and their evolutionary causes remain unsolved. Unlike the largely solitary ancestral mammals, the first primates are thought to have maintained social networks, communicating via vocalizations and scent marks. These networks may have facilitated selection for increased cognitive and communicative abilities at the very emergence of the primate order by providing a medium for kin selection (selection caused by behavior benefiting kin). Unfortunately, the mechanisms by which ancestral primates might have recognized kin are unknown. This study will be the first test of vocal recognition of kin in a species used to model ancestral primates, the grey mouse lemur. Innovative, sophisticated methodology includes marking wild lemurs with transponders and conducting playback experiments at feeding platforms containing transponder readers. With respect to intellectual merit, this project is multidisciplinary, encompassing socioecology, anthropology, bioacoustics, conservation, and field methodology. The project will have great theoretical value for reconstructions of primate origins and will investigate the feasibility of developing novel conservation tools using vocalizations to monitor kin groups of small, nocturnal mammals. The broader impacts are in conservation, education and international collaboration. These lemurs are vulnerable, not only because forest degradation in Madagascar is estimated to have exceeded 90% since the arrival of humans, but also because they are not well understood. Increased knowledge of their social systems will help tailor conservation plans to their needs. The co-PI will integrate this project into science education by creating a webpage so her NSF GK-12 students can follow the research as it progresses. The project will develop new collaborations between German, Malagasy, and American researchers. It will train a field assistant and a Malagasy student in skills vital for launching careers in research, conservation, or park management.