Behavioral Management of Deleterious Aggression in Rhesus Macaques

描述（由申请人提供）：NIH/NCRR赞助的国家灵长类动物研究中心的繁殖计划通常将恒河猴以多雄性多雌性的社会群体安置在大型户外围栏中。该育种计划旨在开发具有成本效益的方法来提高繁殖能力，以增加可用于研究的猴子数量，并为它们的心理健康提供适当的社会化。虽然这些户外的猕猴模拟自然的社会和环境特征，在管理社会安置的猕猴最困难的问题之一是他们的有害的侵略倾向。从管理的角度来看，这种侵略无疑是最有问题的行为，观察组圈养的恒河猴，可以很容易升级的程度，它会导致严重的身体创伤，降低生殖性能和心理健康下降。三年多来，我们一直在进行一项由NIH资助的R24研究，使用社会网络分析来研究内部（例如，群体组成，个性和气质）和外部（例如，管理因素），影响率的有害侵略和伤害组圈养恒河猴。我们的研究提供了强有力的证据表明，个人，家庭和群体特征，如气质，家庭结构和性别比例相互作用，影响网络结构，如模式的提交，和解，梳理和冲突干预，表明群体稳定性和随之而来的有害的侵略和伤害圈养恒河猴。这种竞争性更新的目标是积极应用这些结果，其中描绘了三个主要途径，以减少有害的侵略/伤害恒河猴群体，实施一系列的扰动，将实验测试我们的相关研究结果。将对减少社会不稳定最重要的途径进行实验干扰，以因果验证哪些途径对群体稳定至关重要。这种验证将使我们能够建议NPRCs和其他灵长类动物设施的殖民地管理人员使用积极和适应性的管理方法，以减少有害的侵略，并防止严重的爆发，在aroo-housed恒河猴。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The NIH/NCRR sponsored breeding programs of the National Primate Research Centers commonly house rhesus macaques in multimale-multifemale social groups in large outdoor corrals. This breeding program aims to develop cost-effective methods for enhancing reproduction to increase the number of monkeys available for research and to provide appropriate socialization for their psychological well-being. Although these outdoor corrals simulate natural social and environmental features, one of the most difficult problems in managing socially-housed macaques is their propensity for deleterious aggression. From a management perspective, such aggression is undoubtedly the most problematic behavior observed in group-housed rhesus macaques which can readily escalate to the degree that it results in serious physical trauma, lower reproductive performance and reduced psychological well-being. For over three years we have been conducting an NIH-funded R24 study using social network analysis to examine the internal (e.g. group composition, personality and temperament) and external (e.g., management factors) that influence rates of deleterious aggression and wounding in group-housed rhesus macaques. Our research has provided strong evidence that individual, family and group characteristics such as temperament, family structure and sex ratio interact to influence network structures such as patterns of submission, reconciliation, grooming and conflict intervention that are indicative of group stability and consequent deleterious aggression and wounding in captive rhesus macaques. The goal of this competitive renewal is to actively apply these results, which delineates three major pathways for reducing deleterious aggression/wounding in rhesus groups, to implement a series of perturbations that will experimentally test our correlational findings. Experimental perturbation of the pathways most important to reducing social instability will be conducted to causally validate which pathways are critical for group stability. This validation will allow us to advise colony managers at NPRCs and other primate facilities to use active and adaptive approach to management to reduce deleterious aggression and prevent severe outbreaks in arouo-housed rhesus macaques.