Function of Early Incubation: Tests of Social and Environmental Constraints

9407349贝辛格摘要后代代表父母对未来的投资。从进化论的角度来看，这意味着父母通常应该以最大化其养育的后代数量的方式行事。这一基本生物学问题的某些方面可以在鸟类身上得到特别深入的研究，因为鸟类通过何时以及如何孵化鸡蛋来控制其幼崽的发育。贝辛格博士将通过一系列实地实验来检验关于父母行为适应性质的几个假说，这些实验将考察孵化行为的不同适应功能。这些结果将被整合到生殖的分层模型中，并将有助于发展我们对生殖生物学的理解。此外，由于贝辛格博士工作的物种的许多近亲濒临灭绝，这项研究将对保护生物学产生影响。

9407349 Beissinger Abstract Offspring represent parental investment in the future. In evolutionary terms, this means that parents should generally behave in ways that maximize the number of offspring they raise. Certain aspects of this fundamental biological question can be particularly well-studied in birds because birds control the development of their young by when and how they incubate eggs. Dr. Beissinger will test several hypotheses about the adaptive nature of parental behavior through a series of field experiments which will examine different adaptive functions of incubation behavior. The results will be integrated into a hierarchical model of reproduction and will help to develop our understanding of the biology of reproduction. In addition, because many close relatives of the species Dr. Beissinger works with are endangered, this research will have implications for conservation biology.