Doctoral Dissertation Research: Contextual and physiological correlates of complex behavioral strategies in primates

灵长类动物在社会交往中采取了一系列复杂的行为策略。这个博士论文项目将研究友好和攻击性行为的相对重要性，以及这些行为在男女互动中发生的更广泛的背景。该项目将有助于我们了解在灵长类动物中观察到的生殖行为的分布。这个项目将有助于在实验室对本科生进行荷尔蒙分析技术的培训。该项目还将有助于保护教育项目以及研究地点和母校之间的课堂联系。橄榄狒狒提供了一个独特的机会来测试几个假说，这些假说解决了关于交配方面的强制性与“友好”相互作用的表达。因为这一物种中雄性的交配机会并不严格地局限于地位最高的个体，所以无论是不同的雄性，甚至是同一雄性在不同的时间，与不同的配偶，都会出现攻击性和友善的交配方式。然而，影响产生这些模式的相关雄性和雌性交配决定的条件目前尚不清楚。系统的行为和荷尔蒙数据将从野生橄榄狒狒中收集，以测试两种公认的攻击性策略是否在长期或短期内是有效的雄性策略。相应地，这项研究将评估男性是否通过与女性友好互动的对比策略获得交配机会，无论是作为积极社会联系的长期策略的一部分，还是作为一种短期策略。该项目还将记录女性受伤情况，并非侵入性地测量应激激素，以评估男性策略对女性的生理反应和潜在成本。这一灵长类系统提供了一个有用的模型，用于测试这些表面上相互对立的策略集如何共同进化地相互作用的一般原则。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Primates engage in a complex array of behavioral strategies during social interactions. This doctoral dissertation project will study the relative importance of friendly and aggressive behaviors and the broader contexts in which these behaviors occur during male-female interactions. The project will contribute to our understanding of the distribution of reproductive behaviors observed across the Primate Order. This project will contribute to the training of an undergraduate student in hormonal analysis techniques in the laboratory. The project will also contribute to conservation education programs and classroom connections between research site locations and the home institution. Olive baboons provide a unique opportunity to test several hypotheses addressing the expression of coercive versus "friendly" interactions with respect to mating. Because mating opportunities for males in this species are not strictly confined to the highest ranking individuals, both aggressive and friendly approaches occur, either by different males or even by the same males at different times, with different mates. However, the conditions influencing the relevant male and female mating decisions generating these patterns are currently unclear. Systematic behavioral and hormonal data will be collected from wild olive baboons to test whether two recognized aggressive tactics are effective male strategies in either the long-term or the short-term. Correspondingly, this research will evaluate whether males obtain mating opportunities through the contrasting strategy of friendly interaction to females, either as part of a long-term strategy of positive social affiliation or as a short-term tactic. This project also will record female injuries and non-invasively measure stress hormones to evaluate the physiological response and potential costs to females of male strategies. This primate system provides a useful model for testing general principles of how these ostensibly antithetical strategy sets interact co-evolutionarily.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.