The Genetics of Parental Care Behavior

父母照顾行为的遗传学。Brodie III社会互动中的行为的遗传控制很难理解，因为一个个体的特征会受到与之互动的个体的特征的影响。 这种影响传统上被认为是表型环境变异的来源，但这种观点忽略了“环境”影响本身可以由遗传决定的可能性。其结果是一个复杂的遗传效应网络，从一个个体的特征到另一个个体的特征，并允许环境变异源有助于进化变化。 间接遗传效应（IGE）理论提供了一个框架来理解这种复杂的遗传在传统上用于理解进化过程的定量遗传参数和方程。 IGEs的存在可以大大改变进化动力学和结果，但几乎没有IGEs的实证研究可用于评估IGEs在行为进化中的普遍重要性。父母的照顾行为是社会互动中最常见的例子之一，可以产生IGE。 父母和子女的行为决定了父母提供多少照顾，而父母的照顾反过来又影响了子女的许多特征。如果父母和子女的父母照顾的组成部分是遗传变量，IGE的存在，可以影响父母照顾的演变。拟议的研究将调查在穴居错误，Sehirus cinctus的母体供应的遗传学。 在穴居动物中，父母的照顾仅限于雌性，它们为后代提供薄荷植物的果实作为唯一的营养来源。 先前的研究表明，穴居人是研究父母照顾遗传学的理想系统，因为它们可以很容易地在圈养条件下交叉培养、饲养和繁殖。拟议的工作分为两个部分，旨在确定母亲和后代的基因如何相互作用，以确定父母照顾行为的遗传。项目1是一项关于母亲护理如何影响后代特征的实验研究，将揭示一代人的特征如何影响下一代人的特征。 项目2将定量遗传育种设计与操纵性交叉培育实验相结合，以测量父母和后代中基因在确定供应方面的相对重要性。这个项目还将确定遗传变异和供应行为的父母和后代组件之间的协变模式。遗传变异是任何性状进化的必要条件。 IGE理论认识到相互作用表型的遗传（共）变异（例如，父母照顾）不一定是直接的，而是可以通过社会伙伴的间接途径存在。每个项目的具体结果将用于测试父母照顾进化的表型模型的假设和预测。此外，这项工作将代表第一个定量遗传研究的父母照顾行为，考虑社会背景的重要性。

The Genetics of Parental Care BehaviorEdmund D. Brodie IIIIThe genetic control of behaviors involved in social interactions is difficult to understand because traits of one individual can be influenced by traits of individuals with which it interacts. Such influences have traditionally been considered sources of environmental variation in phenotypes, but this view ignores the possibility that the 'environmental' influences can themselves be genetically determined. The result is a complex web of genetic effects that reach from traits in one individual to traits in another and allows environmental sources of variation to contribute to evolutionary change. Indirect genetic effect (IGE) theory provides a framework for understanding such complex inheritance in terms of the quantitative genetic parameters and equations traditionally used to understand evolutionary processes. The presence of IGEs can substantially alter evolutionary dynamics and outcomes, but virtually no empirical studies of IGEs are available with which to evaluate the general importance of IGEs in behavioral evolution. Parental care behavior is one of the most common examples of social interactions that can generate IGEs. The behavior of both parents and offspring determines how much care parents provide, and parental care in turn influences many traits in offspring. If parent and offspring components of parental care are genetically variable, IGEs exist and can affect the evolution of parental care. The proposed research will investigate the genetics of maternal provisioning in the burrower bug, Sehirus cinctus. Parental care in burrowers is limited to females, which provision their offspring with fruits from mint plants as the sole source of nutrition. Previous research has shown that burrowers are an ideal system for studying the genetics of parental care because they can be readily cross-fostered, reared, and bred in captivity. The proposed work is divided into two parts designed to determine how genes in mothers and offspring interact to determine the inheritance of parental care behavior. Project 1 is an experimental investigation of how maternal care influences offspring traits that will reveal how traits in one generation influence traits in the next. Project 2 combines a quantitative genetic breeding design with manipulative cross-fostering experiments to measure the relative importance of genes in parents and offspring in determining provisioning. This project will also determine patterns of genetic variation and covariation among parent and offspring components of provisioning behavior. Genetic variation is a requisite for the evolution of any trait. IGE theory recognizes that genetic (co)variation for interacting phenotypes (e.g., parental care) need not be direct, but rather may exist through indirect pathways from social partners. Specific results from each project will be used to test assumptions and predictions of phenotypic models of parental care evolution. Moreover, this work will represent the first quantitative genetic study of parental care behavior to consider the importance of social context.