This Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Minority Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship focuses on biological anthropology in the area of Male reproductive skew (inequality in the reproductive success of males in a population). This is regarded as a key force in sexual selection theory. Differential reproductive success among males can have many causes, among them female mate choice for particular males, or differential male ability to be successful in intra-sexual male mating competition. In this proposed project, the PI will evaluate the presence (and extent of) male reproductive skew in two conspecific primate populations of the ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta), a promiscuously-mating primate species. NSF Fellowship funds will be used to cover the costs of two portions of this proposed project: one which is field-based, and one which is lab-based. The first part of this project will involve data collection on lemur mating behavior on St. Catherines Island (USA), a study site in which a managed, free-ranging provisioned lemur colony is maintained by the Wildlife Conservation Society. This lemur colony has been the subject of previous data collection on lemur mating behavior during five breeding seasons for the PI's dissertation research. The second portion of the project will involve training in laboratory techniques to perform genetic paternity exclusion analyses on L. catta blood samples in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Lawler of Boston University (the PI's secondary sponsoring scientist), whose lab specializes in lemur genetics. Two sets of blood samples will be analyzed: one set will be collected from lemurs on St. Catherines Island, and the second has already been collected from a wild population in Beza Mahafaly, Madagascar by the PI's lead sponsoring scientist, Dr. Michelle Sauther of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr. Sauther has collected 180 blood samples from this wild L. catta population. The PI will run paternity analyses on her samples for comparison with genetic data from lemurs in the St. Catherines Island population. This project proposes to measure and compare levels of male reproductive skew at both sites, and evaluate several hypotheses concerning male reproductive success, such as whether the most dominant group males have the highest reproductive success, or whether males with less relatedness to group females (and/or shorter non-natal group tenure) have higher reproductive success than other males. The merit of this project lies in its evaluation of hypotheses grounded in sexual selection theory, and its comparison of biological data from both a provisioned primate colony, and a wild population of the same species for greater explanatory power. Its broader implications include the training of a minority scientist in laboratory techniques which are commonly used in DNA paternity analyses; this training would not be possible without NSF postdoctoral funding.
