Doctoral Dissertation Research: Insect Consumption in Sympatric Primate Species

昆虫在许多灵长类动物的饮食中都有发现，而在人类身上，它们是许多非西方饮食中被低估但重要的组成部分。昆虫对于生活在热带地区的狩猎-采集社会和群体来说尤其重要。然而，尽管昆虫在饮食上很重要，但它们在灵长类动物和人类进化过程中以及在现存的灵长类动物中所起的作用还没有得到充分的研究。由于灵长类昆虫的消费很难观察到，而且昆虫本身往往是神秘的，因此对昆虫性(食虫性)的完全理解在历史上一直是具有挑战性的。然而，遗传方法的最新进展使昆虫猎物识别变得更加实用，允许评估与食虫性有关的显性假说，这些假说以前是无法检验的。这个项目融合了人类学、生态学、昆虫学和分子生物学的方法，以检查密切相关的猴子物种对昆虫的消耗。该项目将在广泛的跨学科科学方法方面对一名妇女(联合--PI)进行培训，从而增加妇女对科学的参与。该项目将研究共域杂食性灵长类昆虫摄食量的变化，以检验昆虫作为食物来源的不同使用有助于杂食性物种共存的假设。这将通过结合先进的分子方法和非侵入性的现场数据收集来识别红尾猴(CerCopithecus Ascanius)和蓝猴(C.mitis)这两个杂食性天猫猴灵长类物种捕食的昆虫。这些数据将被用来调查不同物种、性别和季节之间的食虫性变化。这项研究的结果将有助于我们理解生态和生活史变量对灵长类昆虫消费的影响，并将对解释食虫性在近缘灵长类物种取食生态位分化和共存中的作用具有重要意义。

Insects are found in the diet of many primates, and in humans they are an underappreciated but significant component of many non-Western diets. Insects are particularly important for hunter-gatherer societies and groups living in tropical regions. However, despite their dietary importance, the role that insects have played over the course of primate and human evolution and in living primates is understudied. Gaining a complete understanding of entomophagy (insect eating) has been challenging historically because primate insect consumption is difficult to observe, and because insects themselves are often cryptic. However, recent advances in genetic methods have made insect prey identification more practical, allowing for the evaluation of explicit hypotheses related to entomophagy that were previously untestable. This project incorporates methodologies from anthropology, ecology, entomology, and molecular biology to examine insect consumption in closely related monkey species. The project will provide training of a woman (Co-PI) in a broad range of cross-disciplinary scientific methods, thus increasing the participation of women in science. This project will examine variation in insect consumption by sympatric, omnivorous primates to test the hypothesis that differential use of insects as a food resource facilitates coexistence of omnivorous species. This will be accomplished by integrating advanced molecular methods and noninvasive field data collection to identify insect prey consumed by redtail monkeys (Cercopithecus ascanius) and blue monkeys (C. mitis): two omnivorous cercopithecine primate species. These data will be used to investigate variation in entomophagy between species, sex-class, and seasons. Results of this research will add to our understanding of the influences of ecological and life history variables on primate insect consumption, and will have implications for interpreting the role of entomophagy in feeding niche differentiation and coexistence among closely related primate species.