Unlocking the hard tissue record of primate adaptability to environmental change

现代人类已经能够适应各种不同的自然环境，非人类灵长类动物可以为理解人类这种适应性多功能性的进化起源提供相关的模型。这个项目将利用稀树大草原的气候、行为和骨骼数据，调查生长模式和饮食的变异性，以响应早期的生活环境。这项研究将促进对人类和非人类灵长类进化记录中生活史、灵活性和环境变异性之间关系的了解。该项目还将通过史密森学会的项目和展品，支持代表不足的群体更广泛地参与STEM研究、学生指导和培训，以及公众参与。研究和教育的基础设施将得到加强，建立第一个可用的骨骼收藏，代表来自有充分记录的大草原栖息地的灵长类动物，该栖息地被认为是塑造早期人类适应的重要环境。这项研究的结果将在网上传达给当地野生动物管理人员。生物人类学中的关键问题涉及环境变异性在塑造现代人类行为和生活史中所起的作用，这种行为和生活史提高了生育率，并使后代投资最大化，而不是长期依赖青少年。发育可塑性，包括通过生长速度、成熟时间和其他特征的变化来响应环境变化的能力，是现代人类生活史战略的潜在机制。然而，人类谱系中生命历史灵活性的进化起源和生态背景仍然知之甚少。该项目将长期的气候数据与肯尼亚安博塞利盆地单一高度动态环境中的野生狒狒的发育、行为和生态数据相结合，以测试早期生命的物理和社会/母体环境如何影响(1)牙齿和身体大小发育的硬组织微解剖参数，以及(2)牙齿碳和氮稳定的食物质量和组成的同位素特征。具体地说，这项研究调查了出生在低降雨量和恶劣的母体/社会环境中的后代是否会经历在硬组织中可以检测到的负面后果，包括较低质量的饮食，对身体生长的投资减少，以及对晚年压力的敏感性增加。阐明早期环境挑战是如何由发育和行为机制调节的，将提高对该物种尽管环境发生重大变化时的适应能力的理解。此外，通过提供一个框架来破译硬组织中生活史变化的最接近的生态背景，这项研究具有研究人类进化过程中适应性多样性和环境变化之间的关系的变革性潜力。

Modern humans have been able adapt to a diverse range of natural environments, and non-human primates can provide relevant models for understanding the evolutionary origins of this adaptive versatility in humans. This project will investigate variability in growth patterns and diet in response to early life environments, using climate, behavioral, and skeletal data for savanna baboons. The research will advance knowledge about relationships between life history flexibility and environmental variability in the human and non-human primate evolutionary record. The project also will support broader participation of underrepresented groups in STEM research, student mentoring and training, and public engagement through Smithsonian Institution programs and exhibits. Infrastructure for research and education will be enhanced by establishing the first available skeletal collection representing primates from a well-documented savannah habitat, thought to have been an important environment shaping early human adaptation. Results from the study will be communicated online, and to local wildlife managers. Key questions in biological anthropology concern the role that environmental variability played in shaping modern human behavior and life history, which increases fertility and maximizes offspring investment over a prolonged juvenile dependency. Developmental plasticity, including the capacity to respond to environmental change through shifts in growth rates, maturational timing, and other traits, is a proposed mechanism underlying the modern human life history strategy. However, the evolutionary origins and ecological context of life history flexibility in the human lineage remain poorly understood. This project integrates long-term climate data with developmental, behavioral and ecological data in wild baboons from a single, highly dynamic environment in the Amboseli basin, Kenya, to test how early life physical and social/maternal environments influence (1) hard tissue microanatomical parameters of dental and body size development, and (2) tooth carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures of diet quality and composition. Specifically, this research investigates whether offspring born into low rainfall and poor maternal/social environments experience negative consequences that are detectable in hard tissues, including lower quality diets, reduced investment in physical growth, and increased susceptibility to later-life stress. Elucidating how early environmental challenges in Amboseli baboons are mediated by developmental and behavioral mechanisms will improve understanding of this species' resilience despite significant environmental change. Further, by contributing a framework for deciphering the proximate ecological context of life history variation in hard tissues, this research has transformative potential for investigating relationships between adaptive versatility and environmental change during human evolution.