How we came to our senses: dietary ecology and primate sensory evolution

我的长期研究目标是了解灵长类如何利用感官寻找和选择食物，以及饮食和栖息地如何在灵长类进化过程中塑造视觉、嗅觉、味觉、触觉和听觉。所有关于灵长类起源和适应性辐射的主要假说都取决于感觉系统、饮食和活动模式之间的关系。为了推动我们对灵长类觅食生态学的理解，我的研究计划将在未来5年将实地工作与最先进的基因组学方法和在灵长类栖息地现场测量食物特性的最新技术相结合。在过去的12年里，我研究了灵长类、它们的近亲以及其他饮食和栖息地与灵长类相似的哺乳动物感觉的遗传基础。自2011年以来，我一直在哥斯达黎加圣罗萨区共同指导卷尾猴的纵向研究。我过去的研究表明，颜色视觉的变化会影响猴子对不同食物的摄食效率。我和我的合作者还表明，这种色觉变异背后的基因多态是通过平衡选择来维持的。我现在建议通过调查色觉变化是否会导致食物生态位差异，从而降低组内摄食竞争来推进这一研究。此外，我将开始对灵长类及其近亲的嗅觉和味觉的基因组基础进行新的研究，以及灵长类如何将视觉与其他感官相结合来评估食物的可食性。此外，利用最新的技术，我将测量饮食食品的气味、颜色和机械性能。人们越来越认识到，非视觉感觉对包括人类在内的灵长类动物的觅食生态很重要，但人们对这些感觉的分子进化以及它们在现实世界任务中是如何整合的知之甚少。通过结合对野生猴子的观察(我有关于其一生繁殖成功的详细数据)，比较基因组学，以及用于测量食物特性的便携式设备，我的研究计划处于独特的地位，可以在哺乳动物感觉生态学领域取得重大进展。几十年来，生物人类学家一直在质疑灵长类动物是否为了更好的视力而“牺牲”了他们的嗅觉，最早的灵长类动物吃什么，我们的祖先从夜间活动转变为白天活动的生态位，以及这种适应变化的影响。通过打造新的跨学科途径，研究与生态和系统发生相关的物种，并在新热带地区运行时间最长的灵长类野外地点进行实地考察，学员和我将为这些长期存在的问题提供新的线索。这项研究将通过将基因类型与野生动物的表型、觅食成功和适应性联系起来，推动加拿大行为和分子生态学领域的发展。

My long-term research aim is to understand how primates use their senses to find and select foods, and how diet and habitat have shaped vision, olfaction, taste, touch and hearing over the course of primate evolution. All major hypotheses concerning primate origins and adaptive radiation hinge on the relationships among sensory systems, diet and activity pattern. To propel forward our understanding of primate foraging ecology, my research program over the next 5 years will integrate fieldwork with state-of-the-art methods in genomics and recent technology for measuring food properties on-site in primate habitats.For the past 12 years I have studied the genetic basis of sensation in primates, their close relatives, and other mammals with diets and habitats similar to primates. Since 2011, I have co-directed longitudinal research on capuchin monkeys in Sector Santa Rosa, Costa Rica. My past research has revealed that colour vision variation impacts the feeding efficiency of monkeys for different foods. My collaborators and I have also shown that the genetic polymorphism underlying this colour vision variation is maintained through balancing selection. I now propose to advance this line of research by investigating whether colour vision variation leads to dietary niche divergence, thus lowering intragroup feeding competition. In addition, I will begin new investigations of the genomic basis of the senses of smell and taste in primates and their relatives, and how primates integrate vision with other senses to assess food edibility. In addition, using newly available technologies, I will measure the odours, colours, and mechanical properties of dietary foods. There is a growing recognition that non-visual senses are important to the foraging ecology of primates, including humans, yet little is known about the molecular evolution of these senses and how they are integrated during real-world tasks. By combining observations of wild monkeys for which I have detailed data on lifetime reproductive success, with comparative genomics, and portable equipment for measuring food properties, my research program is uniquely positioned to make major advancements in the field of mammalian sensory ecology. For decades, biological anthropologists have questioned whether primates “sacrificed” their sense of smell for better vision, what the earliest primates ate, when our ancestors shifted from a nocturnal to a diurnal niche, and the repercussions of this adaptive shift. By forging new transdisciplinary pathways, examining ecologically and phylogenetically relevant species, and conducting fieldwork at the longest-running primate field site in the neotropics, trainees and I will shed new light on these long-standing questions. This research will advance the fields of behavioural and molecular ecology in Canada by linking genotypes with phenotypes, foraging success, and fitness of wild animals.