Mating Systems and the Resolution of Intrafamily Conflict in a Marine Snail

生态和遗传利益冲突的解决实际上支配着从基因到社会的所有社会关系。 家庭是一个普遍的、特别激烈的合作和冲突的竞技场：父亲和母亲、儿子和女儿、兄弟和姐妹篇可能经常为对方而死，但在适当的情况下，他们也会互相残杀。 40年前亲缘选择理论的发展为分析家庭成员之间冲突的解决提供了基础，阐明了任何物种的亲属对如何以及何时应该和不应该互相帮助。 然而，社会冲突很少涉及孤立的亲属关系。 相反，这些冲突是在不同家庭成员之间的互动矩阵上发生的。 这项建议的重点是解决一个显着的海洋蜗牛，其中女性封闭他们的后代在“托儿所”，他们重视男性多方面的家庭内冲突。 随着后代的成长，他们会互相蚕食，这是兄弟姐妹争夺母亲提供的资源的一种极端形式。 由于雌性与几个雄性交配，托儿所里的后代通常是全兄弟姐妹和同父异母兄弟姐妹篇的混合体。 这种广泛存在的雌性多次交配的习惯增加了父母和后代之间以及后代之间的冲突范围。 理论预测，后代应该在他们的全同胞之前消耗他们的半同胞，并且使用实验和遗传分析来验证这个预测是这个提议的主要目标。 此外，本提案中的研究将使用实验来确定雌性是否控制全同胞和半同胞的混合，以便调整托儿所内同类相食的比率。 这项研究涉及与墨西哥同事和学生的广泛国际合作。 该项目将支持基础设施，包括一个分子生态学网站和相关讲习班，以及一个多用户遗传学设施，用于培训学生和博士后研究人员进行最先进的分子分析。 在过去的三年里，NSF支持了6名博士的培训。学生（3名女性，1名西班牙裔），4名博士后（1名女性，1名西班牙裔）和9名本科生（5名女性，1名少数民族）。 该提案将支持培训相当数量的年轻科学家，在行为、生态学、进化和海洋生物学方面对他们进行多学科培训。

The resolution of ecological and genetic conflicts of interest governs virtually all social relationships, from genes to societies. Families represent a universal and especially intense arena for cooperation and conflict: fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters may often die for each other, but given the right circumstances, they will also kill each other. The development of kin selection theory 40 years ago provided the foundation for analyzing the resolution of conflicts between family members, clarifying how and when pairs of relatives of any species should and should not help each other. However, social conflicts rarely involve isolated pairs of relatives. Instead, the conflicts play out on a matrix of interactions between different family members, and beyond. This proposal focuses on the resolution of multiway intrafamily conflicts in a remarkable marine snail, in which females enclose their offspring in "nurseries" that they attach to males. As the offspring develop, they cannibalize each other, an extreme form of sibling competition for resources provided by their mother. Because females mate with several males, the offspring within a nursery are usually a mixture of full- and half-brothers and sisters. This widespread habit of multiple mating by females increases the scope for conflict between parents and offspring, and among the offspring. Theory predicts that offspring should consume their half-sibs before their full sibs, and testing this prediction using experiments and genetic analyses is a major goal of this proposal. In addition, the studies in this proposal will use experiments to determine whether females control the mixture of full- and half-siblings, so as to adjust the rates of cannibalism within nurseries. The research involves extensive international collaboration with colleagues and students in Mexico. The project will support infrastructure, including a molecular ecology website and associated workshops, and a multi-user genetics facility used to train students and postdoctoral researchers in state-of-the-art molecular analysis. NSF support over the last three years has supported the training of 6 Ph.D. students (3 women, 1 Hispanic), 4 postdocs (1 woman, 1 Hispanic), and 9 undergraduates(5 women, 1 minority). This proposal will support the training of a comparable number of young scientists, giving them multidisciplinary training at the interface of behavior, ecology, evolution, and marine biology.