Doctoral Dissertation Research: Social relationships, predation risks, and primate sleep

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。这篇博士论文研究了群居灵长类动物如何决定晚上睡觉的地方，以及它们对睡觉地点的选择如何影响它们的睡眠质量。该项目考虑了环境的物理特征，以及灵长类动物群体配偶特征的差异化和多方面的社会关系如何影响这一重要决定。通过调查这种选择对睡眠质量的影响，该研究为理解早期人类祖先如何在夜间捕食中幸存下来并在此过程中获得充足的睡眠提供了一个比较的视角。该项目支持STEM领域的研究能力建设，并为来自STEM领域未被充分代表的群体的本科生和研究生提供跨学科研究机会。他们计划通过科学手稿、公开演讲和科普博客文章与学术界和公众分享这项研究的成果。像其他生活在大草原上的灵长类动物一样，狒狒在晚上躲在树上和悬崖上，以减轻夜间被捕食的风险。当狒狒在夜间避难所中选择一个睡觉的地方时，不仅要面对一个异质的物理环境，这可能会造成对睡眠地点选择质量的不对称，而且还要面对一个可变的生态环境和动态的社会环境，这可能会进一步调节与每个睡眠地点相关的偏好和可用性。尽管有大量的研究兴趣，但实际限制阻碍了对灵长类动物如何在这一至关重要但复杂的决策环境中进行系统调查。该项目结合了传统的野外方法和最新的技术进步，以克服实际限制，使研究人员能够(1)表征狒狒的睡眠点偏好；(2)评估个体如何在动态的社会环境中更新他们的睡眠地点选择；(3)确定获得首选睡眠点是否转化为可测量的睡眠益处；(4)检验捕食风险感知对睡眠点决策动态和睡眠质量的影响。该项目使用野外灵长类动物学的方法来描述狒狒群体的社会动态，3D激光扫描来评估睡眠点的指标，热成像和卷积神经网络来跟踪狒狒整个晚上的决策，加速测量来评估睡眠质量，以及捕食者回放来控制被捕食者的感知风险。通过使用橄榄狒狒来检验这些目标，这项跨学科的合作研究为早期人类祖先在最脆弱的时候是如何做出复杂决定的讨论提供了信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). This doctoral dissertation research investigates how group-living primates decide where to sleep at night, and how their choice of where to sleep influences their sleep quality. The project considers how physical features of the environment as well as the differentiated and multi-faceted social relationships that are characteristic of primate group mates impact this important decision. By investigating the consequences of this choice on sleep quality, the research provides a comparative perspective for understanding how early human ancestors survived night predation and obtained sufficient sleep while doing so. This project supports STEM research capacity building at the field site as well as interdisciplinary research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students from groups underrepresented in STEM. There are plans to share products of this research with academic and public audiences through scientific manuscripts, public lectures, and popular-science blog contributions. Like other savannah-dwelling primates, baboons seek refuge at night in trees and on cliffs to mitigate the risk of nocturnal predation. When choosing a spot in which to sleep within the nighttime refuge, baboons face not only a heterogeneous physical environment that could create asymmetries in the perceived quality of sleep spot alternatives, but also a variable ecological context and dynamic social environment that could further modulate the preferences and availability associated with each sleep spot. Despite substantial research interest, practical limitations have prevented a systematic investigation of how primates navigate this critically important, yet complex decision-making landscape. This project combines traditional field methods in primatology with the latest technological advances to overcome practical limitations, allowing investigators to (1) characterize baboons’ sleep spot preferences; (2) assess how individuals update their sleep spot choices in a dynamic social environment; (3) determine whether acquiring a preferred sleep spot translates to a measurable benefit for sleep; and (4) test how the perceived risk of predation affects sleep spot decision-making dynamics and sleep quality. The project uses methods in field primatology to describe the group's social dynamics, 3D laser scanning to assess metrics of sleep spots, thermal imagery and convolutional neural networks to track baboons' decisions throughout the night, accelerometry to evaluate sleep quality, and predator playbacks to manipulate the perceived risk of predation. By examining these aims using olive baboons, the collaborative and interdisciplinary research informs discussions of how early human ancestors may have made complex decisions when they were most vulnerable.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.