Doctoral Dissertation Research: Diet, cognition, and nutrient cycling in wild orangutan habitats

博士论文研究：野生猩猩栖息地的饮食、认知和营养循环

• 批准号: 1613564
• 负责人: Erin Vogel
• 金额: $ 3.1万
• 依托单位: Rutgers University New Brunswick
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-07-15 至 2018-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1613564&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Diet; cognition

Primate cognitive evolution is thought to have been shaped, in part, by the need to navigate complex and variable environments in order to find food. However, the relationship between ecological variability and cognitive complexity is not fully understood for living primates. This doctoral dissertation project will use innovative and interdisciplinary methods to study the travel paths of Bornean orangutans through their environment, in order to understand how these primates fulfill specific nutritional targets and navigate their environment using prior information to reach those targets. A better understanding of what one of our closest living relatives knows about their resources, and how they utilize this information to make foraging decisions, provides a unique opportunity for deepening our understanding of the origins and evolution of complex cognition in our own species. This research will also support academic training and mentorship for students under-represented in STEM fields, foster international collaboration and scientific capacity building at the field location, and contribute to local conservation initiatives by providing a method to predict how, why and when orangutans will move through different parts of their habitat.There is increasing interest in the study of primate spatial cognition by analyzing travel paths of animals through their environment. Researchers tend to examine travel decisions through the lens of classical foraging theory, but the observed spatial behavior of animals rarely reflects the expectations set by foraging models. This may be because interpretations of foraging and travel decisions typically focus on calories, when in fact foragers may also have specific nutritional targets and navigate using prior information to reach those targets. This project will examine how spatial cognition facilitates nutritional balancing in primates by studying Bornean orangutans. Orangutans are an ideal model system because they live in highly variable environments, do not live in social groups, and thus make independent travel and foraging decisions. Most prior studies addressing spatial memory and diet have lacked the ecological correlates of cognition, or have struggled to quantify cognitive foraging in the wild. In this project, data on food distribution, availability, and nutrition will be quantified using a combination of manual sampling and modern remote sensing techniques. Data on ranging and foraging will be collected via focal observations in which dietary and GPS data will be collected at two minute intervals. Urine samples will be collected opportunistically to monitor nutritional and energetic status. These data will be analyzed by integrating a set of novel spatially explicit statistical techniques from movement ecology with the nutritional geometric framework from nutritional ecology.

灵长类动物的认知进化被认为是由于需要在复杂和可变的环境中浏览食物而形成的。但是，生态变异性与认知复杂性之间的关系尚未完全理解为活跃灵长类动物。该博士学位论文项目将使用创新和跨学科的方法来研究伯尔橘子的旅行路径，以了解这些灵长类动物如何实现特定的营养目标并使用先前的信息来实现其环境以达到这些目标。 更好地理解我们最亲密的亲戚对他们的资源了解的知识，以及他们如何利用这些信息做出觅食决策，为我们加深了我们对自己物种中复杂认知的起源和进化的理解提供了独特的机会。这项研究还将为在茎领域中所代表不足的学生提供学术培训和指导，促进了国际合作和科学能力在现场地点建设，并通过提供一种方法来预测猩猩如何，为什么以及何时在其栖息地的不同部分中移动的方法，从而通过分析游客的环境来越来越多地通过他们的栖息地进行兴趣。研究人员倾向于通过经典觅食理论的角度检查旅行决策，但是观察到的动物的空间行为很少反映出通过觅食模型设定的期望。这可能是因为对觅食和旅行决策的解释通常关注卡路里，而实际上觅食者也可能具有特定的营养目标并使用先前的信息导航以达到这些目标。该项目将研究如何通过研究Beennean Orangutans来促进灵长类动物的营养平衡。猩猩是理想的模型系统，因为它们生活在高度可变的环境中，不生活在社会群体中，因此可以做出独立的旅行和觅食决策。关于空间记忆和饮食的大多数先前研究都缺乏认知的生态相关性，或者一直在努力量化野外认知觅食。在该项目中，将使用手动采样和现代遥感技术的组合来量化有关食品分布，可用性和营养的数据。范围和觅食的数据将通过焦点观察收集，其中将以两分钟的间隔收集饮食和GPS数据。尿液样本将进行机会，以监测营养和能量状态。这些数据将通过将运动生态学的一组新型的空间显式统计技术与营养生态学的营养几何框架进行分析。