Doctoral Dissertation Research: Behavior and energetics of parenting

多人合作照顾婴儿被认为在人类进化中发挥了关键作用，因为它减少了母亲在子女身上投资所需的能量。要理清由多个人提供的护理的能量成本和效益之间的关系可能是具有挑战性的，对这个问题的研究可以从对具有类似形式的合作婴儿护理的其他物种的检查中受益。最简单的形式是，婴儿只接受父母的照顾，称为双亲照顾。这篇博士论文研究项目测量了与双亲合作婴儿护理有关的灵长类物种婴儿护理的能量消耗。来自野生种群和圈养种群的行为数据、运动数据和婴儿护理期间能量使用的新陈代谢测量相结合，以调查这些猴子如何分配育儿责任的能量成本。该项目支持野外长期研究和科学家，并制作双语短视频来传播结果。为了量化雄性和雌性父母在照顾婴儿方面的相对投资，这项研究将两只铜色猴子的行为数据与活动和能量数据结合起来。铜色的提提猴子的母亲和父亲都专门从事一些照顾孩子的工作：母亲、保姆和父亲抱着婴儿。然而，其他关爱行为，如打扮和容忍的食物盗窃，基于性的专业化程度仍然未知，这些行为的精神负担和父母活动中的任何补偿性变化也是未知的。活动数据将在整个婴儿护理期间收集，并允许在行为和生理基础上对父母在婴儿护理期间所做的精力充沛的投资做出推断，因为能源使用的衡量将在行为和活动的背景下进行。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Cooperative infant care in which multiple individuals contribute to caring for a single offspring is thought to have played a key role in human evolution by reducing the energy mothers need to invest in their offspring. It can be challenging to disentangle the relationship between energetic costs and benefits of care provided by multiple individuals, and the study of this question can benefit from the examination of other species with similar forms of cooperative infant care. The simplest form, where infants receive care from only their mother and father, is called biparental care. This Doctoral Dissertation Research project measures energy expenditure related to infant care in primate species with biparental cooperative infant care. Behavioral data, movement data, and metabolic measurements of energy use during infant care are combined from wild and captive populations to investigate how these monkeys distribute the energetic costs of childcare responsibilities. The project supports long-term research and scientists at a field station and produces short bilingual videos to disseminate results.To quantify the relative investment of male and female parents in the care of their infants, this research combines behavioral data from both coppery titi monkeys with activity and energetics data. Coppery titi monkey mothers and fathers each specialize in some caring tasks: mothers nurse and fathers carry the infant. However, the extent of sex-based specialization for other caring behaviors, such as grooming and tolerated food theft remains unknown as does the energetic burden of these behaviors and any compensatory changes in the parents’ activity. Activity data will be collected throughout the entire period of infant care , andallows inferences about the energetic investment parents make during infant care to be made on both behavioral and physiological bases since the measures of energy use will be in the context of behavior and activity.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.