Behavioral Ecology of Prairie Dogs

草原土拨鼠的行为生态学

• 批准号: 0113145
• 负责人: John Hoogland
• 金额: $ 24.24万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2001
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2001-09-01 至 2007-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0113145&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Behavioral; Ecology; Prairie; Dogs

TITLE: BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY OF PRAIRIE DOGSPRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: JOHN L. HOOGLANDUtah prairie dogs are colonial, burrowing rodents that are in acute danger of extinction. Research on their ecology and social behavior at Bryce Canyon National Park will help conservation biologists to formulate a recovery plan for these rare animals.Biologists argue about the details, but they all agree that individuals should avoid extreme inbreeding. Utah prairie dogs, however, commonly mate with close kin such as parents, siblings and offspring. Long-term research will examine the reproductive success of individuals that engage in extreme inbreeding.Although infanticide is ubiquitous among animals, the frequency is usually low and the victims are usually genetically unrelated to killers. For Utah prairie dogs, however, infanticide affects 27% of litters. Further, males frequently kill the offspring of females with whom they copulated. Research will investigate reasons for these unusual features of infanticide among Utah prairie dogs.DNA- fingerprints indicate a startling result for Utah prairie dogs: females commonly rear the offspring of other females. Research will investigate whether mothers that rear foster offspring increase the safety of their own offspring from both infanticide and predation.

标题：草原土拨鼠的行为生态学调查员：约翰·L·霍格兰德·犹他州草原土拨鼠是群居的穴居啮齿动物，面临着严重的灭绝危险。在布莱斯峡谷国家公园对它们的生态和社会行为进行研究，将有助于保护生物学家为这些稀有动物制定恢复计划。生物学家对细节存在争议，但他们都同意，个体应该避免极端近亲繁殖。然而，犹他州草原土拨鼠通常与近亲交配，如父母、兄弟姐妹和后代。长期的研究将考察从事极端近亲繁殖的个体的繁殖成功。尽管杀婴在动物中普遍存在，但频率通常很低，受害者通常与杀手没有基因上的联系。然而，对于犹他州的草原土拨鼠来说，杀婴会影响27%的猫砂。此外，雄性经常杀死与它们交配的雌性的后代。研究人员将调查犹他州草原犬杀婴的这些不同寻常的特征的原因。DNA指纹显示，犹他州草原犬的结果令人震惊：雌性通常会抚养其他雌性的后代。研究将调查养育子女的母亲是否会增加自己子女免受杀婴和捕食的安全。