Greetings... and a (potentially) sensitive question!

[Walking Void]

My question is this: Do we have an obligation to live according to a moral standard, based on maximizing the prosperity of our genes, or our species?

Obligation, which is very comparable to a duty, is not absolute. It is relative between each cubic unit of matter. What makes a barnacle that much different from a rock? Not very much, in the grandeur of things. A species of animals or plants does however have a drive to preserve itself. By means of reproduction. Generations are naturally selected, but without a learning brain, unintentionally so. Necessities are not transparent, no, they are not limpid at all. Living, is simply simpler than dying. Living, is just the continuous process of absorbing energy to fuel the organism's basic functions. Protein production, sugar production, fat production. Dying, requires a lengthy process of negating these basic processes. Starvation is time-consuming, annihilation is socially or physically dependent on 3rd parties, poisoning requires the introduction of destabilizing agents, etc.

Your obligation, is yours to decide. Non-self preservational needs are a human invention.