Duke Lemur Center Research Questionnaire for Website Update 2011
PI: Joseph Petty (Advisor: Dr. Christine Drea)

Key collaborators:

Project Title:
The neuroendocrine substrates of female dominance.
Area of research (eg. Behavior, cognition, biomechanics, systematics, genomics, etc.):
Behavioral Endocrinology
Please provide brief (1-3 sentences) answers to the following questions:
1) What is your main research question?
Female dominance is rare in mammals but characterizes most lemurs. I am investigating if and how hormones, like estrogen and testosterone, play a role in physiologically regulating this unique behavioral trait.

2) Briefly describe your project design.
We observe and record the interactions between male and female lemurs representing six species all from the same genus, Eulemur. Periodically we take blood and fecal samples to measure baseline hormone levels. Of the six species we study (Blue-eyed black lemurs, Crowned lemurs, Mongoose lemurs, Red-bellied lemurs, Red-fronted brown lemurs, and Collard brown lemurs) the Red-fronted and Collared brown lemurs do not show female dominance over males so they provide a important comparative group for our study.

3) How will working with lemurs/lemur samples help achieve your research goals?
Very few mammals have social systems where females are dominant over males, making those that do, like lemurs, a very interesting model to test hypothesis about sex roles and sexually dimorphic behaviors. This study would be impossible without the lemurs at the Duke Lemur Center.

4) What interesting results have you found?
So far it does seem that female lemurs from species, like the blue-eyed black lemur, that express female dominance have higher circulating levels of some hormones, like testosterone, than Red-fronted and Collard Brown lemur females that don’t show female dominance over males.

5) Relevant/recent publications: