Career Advancement Award: Hormonal Factors Affecting Reproductive Dominance, Cooperation and Parental Behavior in Communally-Breeding Burying Beetles

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

A key area of behavioral biology is the mechanisms of hormonal regulation of social behavior. How the endocrine system and the environment, including the behavior of other individuals, might interact is of growing interest. Yet hardly anything is known of the endocrine mechanisms for the regulation of social behavior of insects, in spite of their rich repertory of behavior. Burying beetles prepare and bury small carcasses that will become food for their larvae. They are unusual in several respects. They must coordinate reproduction with the location of a necessary resource that is unpredictable in both time and space. Their behavior must undergo regular changes from competitive to cooperative and from infanticidal to parental. Males and females must also coordinate their reproductive behavior and endocrine system with those of their mates. Dr. Scott's research project has the following aims: 1. to establish the profiles of juvenile hormone (JH) and ecdysteroids, using radioimmunoassay, during a breeding cycle, especially during parental care, for both males and females, 2. to identify the hormonal control of parental behavior, especially the cue for switching from infanticide to feeding and parental care of larvae, and 3. to characterize the role of JH and ecdysteroids in establishment of reproductive dominance in communally breeding females.